UNITed by Sorcery
by Tangerine-Alert
Summary: Post OotP, Harry decides to leave his relatives to ready himself for Voldemort, something Dumbledore seems unwilling to do. He meets a Brigadier and quickly finds Earth is not alone.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Everything JKR created isn't mine and is owned by the various people who do. Doctor Who concepts and characters are owned by their respective copyright holders. Original characters and creations are mine.

_A/N: This is a new attempt to rewrite my truly terrible Sorcery, UNITed, Independence, Space, which was one of my first stories. I'm deleting the chapters of it and replacing it with this. _

_This story is at its core still the same story, I've just trimmed away everything that was a lot of rambling. Horcruxes now exist in this version, but that's the only part of HBP that I've included in the story. This is still a post-Order of the Phoenix story._

Chapter 1

"My name is Harry James Potter, and this" Harry paused to breathe, he had been forcing himself to do this over the past few hours. He knew he was on the verge of carbon dioxide poisoning. He had to push a button every so often to engage the C02 scrubbers. The interference from the horcruxes and Voldemort's body within the box he lying beside prevented most of the systems, despite what his new associates knew about magic, from working efficiently.

"Deep breath Harry, not too deep, breathe." He said to himself.

He was used to talking to himself, the long times spent in the cupboard, forced in by his relatives made him speak long to himself, to the spiders. In fact to anyone who might provide him with conversation, because the people who lived beside him every day, certainly would not, would never engage him in conversation. Orders perhaps, insults yes, though never conversation. Sometimes sympathy, he had seen that on occasion from his aunt.

"This is where I die, or maybe where I live." He chuckled.

_In the beginning…_

Sirius was dead. Harry thought to himself for the thousandth time and he was to blame for it.

Harry stared at the ceiling, the cool air of the outside coming into his room, he'd left the window open; Hedwig was out hunting. At least one of them could get out of the room, his relatives possibly under instructions from Professor Dumbledore had not allowed him to leave the house.

Harry closed his eyes again, hoping for sleep, or some distraction, even the pain of Voldemort attempting to enter his mind would at least be a distraction from his thoughts at the moment.

"Hello Harry." Said a voice in the gloom. Harry blinked and reached up to his face to remove his glasses, but found them not to be there. He had several dreams like this, usually when he'd been younger, when Dudley thought it was hilarious to steal his glasses and then lead him to the cooker where he'd burn his hands or other things. Though those burns were nothing compared to the quill he'd been forced to use by Umbridge, that pain had cut through him, more than he liked to admit.

"S…Sirius." Harry stared at the ghostly figure, translucent against the black void that he was standing in.

"You're…you're not dead?" Harry said looking to the man who he thought might one day take him away from the pain and hurt that was his life.

"No. You saw Bella shoot me, I fell into the veil. There's no escape from that."

"The what?" Harry asked, there were, once again tears in his eyes.

"I'm an after-image, left in your mind, an impression, from all the times we spent together, something to help you work this through." The mirage of Sirius said.

"So, you're not real, I'm just talking to myself." Harry surmised to himself and the image or Sirius.

"Everyone talks to themselves Harry. But this" he gestured the void that had now become a study with a silently crackling fire "is where you can work stuff out, stuff that's been going on this past year, these past years, things you already know yourself, you just need to work it through. Think of me as a foil, bounce ideas off."

Harry thought about this for a moment, he knew that magic was part of him, that it was part of the world, could this be magic? Or was it just his subconscious working the events through.

"You've already started to think about it. See, I'm a bit of both, maybe I'm one or the other, it shouldn't matter, just work the ideas through it'll all work out. So what's troubling you?" Sirius, or whatever he was sat down into the chair by the fire as though he'd been here before.

"Was it my fault you died?" Harry said staring with newly formed tears in his eyes, he wanted to be sure.

"You already know the answer to that one, but let me tell you what you've already been thinking. Dumbledore said you should learn occlumency, to protect you from Voldemort." Sirius paused waiting for Harry.

"And he got the one person, the one person who has hated me from the get go, him; Snape to teach me."

"Yes, and whilst you tried with him he pushed and never helped. Dumbledore didn't either, he didn't stop Umbridge or Snape. Why?" Sirius looked into Harry's eyes waiting for him to answer.

"Why indeed." Harry started to ponder this, why didn't Dumbledore help? He was the _Supreme Mugwump_ after all.

"Why didn't he help you initially, Why did Dumbeldore disappear for so much of last year, Why wasn't he there during the Philosopher's Stone incident, why was it me and Ron that went down into the Chamber of Secrets in what was supposedly the safest school in Great Britain?" Sirius nodded at Harry. Harry could feel the gears in his head shift into gear, looking back on the events that had shaped that past few years, Dumbledore was always there, never when he needed him most but always to put the right hand on his shoulder, always ready to say the right things to him, to push him to make him put his trust in Dumbeldore.

"I can almost hear the gears in your head shifting." Sirius reached forward to and poked the fire with the metal stake it crackled making noise for the first time.

"Oh my god. Sirius, he was there every way, all the times, guiding me pushing me." Harry felt sick now that he was working it all out.

"_he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…_" Harry whispered the prophecy to himself. Thinking back over the trials he had faced, summoning Godric's sword, killing the Basilisk, showing the ultimate mercy to his parent's betrayer, defeating Quirrell;. Even the DA, becoming a leader, believing in people, fighting Voldemort all of the time…

"Yes Harry…" Sirius said looking away from the fire to him once more.

"He's been sculpting me, leading me in the right direction, making sure I was for the light all the way, ready to go just outside the lines when he wanted. He wanted to see how strong he was. He kept you locked up knowing you'd come. I…think…I'm…going…to…bed…sick" Harry said slowly.

"Yes I would too if I were in your position. I guess I am in many ways."

_Why would he do this?_

"Why…?" Harry whispered into the fire, not trusting his voice,

"You know, you've heard the prophecy. Come on think it through, what does Dumbledore like?" Sirius stood up next to Harry staring at the dancing flames.

"Sweets?" Harry asked.

Sirius chuckled. "Deeper, what does he do, both officially and unofficially?"

"He's the headmaster, and he's the head of the Order of the Phoenix." Harry stared back into the fire not thinking.

"And what do those two things give him?"

What, what? What did those two things give him, the ability to be odd, deranged, slightly mad at the best of times. He did defeat Grindelwald…but what…

"You're getting there."

"Why can't you tell me?" Harry looked irritably at Sirius, he looked back arching his eye brow.

"Yes I know, just a foil. What does that give him? He already has a reputation…." Harry stared off thinking about all the events "Control, he has ultimate control, over what we learn, he's also the head of the Order, that means he's got power, power over the school and his own little militia for this war."

_But that's not it, why me…._

"I'm the power, he wants to control me…"

"But…?"

"But, I'm distressed, I smashed up his office, I'm all alone now, he's been there all along, but right now I'm outside his control. What…he's going to want me in his control…" Harry was getting into the idea, not in a good way.

"So he's going to do something for you, something you wanted from when you learnt about it."

"He's going to offer me something…something prestigious…something he thinks I've wanted all along…" Harry chuckled pulling himself out of the chair. "He's going to induct me into the Order of the Phoenix." It dawned on him, Harry Potter member of the Order of the Phoenix, a sign to all in the wizarding world that Albus Dumbledore had Harry Potter on his side.

"But…" His psyche or Sirius or whatever prompted.

"But, he doesn't just need me, he needs to know what's going on with Tom… Why did that come into my head?" Harry said looking at Sirius.

"Your's thinking now, pulling all these ideas together like string, you start to make connections. What connects Dumbledore, and Tom, besides your good self." Harry walked back to his chair but continued to stare into the void behind Sirius.

"Snape. Snape taught me occlumency. Snape is Dumbledore's most trusted spy. Snape is obviously good at what he does or Tom would have spotted him ages ago. Snape was asked by Dumbledore to teach me occulmency. Snape told me to clear my mind opening it…." It was like a huge set of doors slammed open as Harry understood it all.

"Oh… Dumbledore wanted some way to see into what Tom is doing, Snape doesn't see everything, he wants a conduit, someone to see through his eyes." Harry was breathing hard. "It wasn't to protect me it was to open me up to whatever he sent down the link, Dumbles would be there to comfort me and I'd feel like a member of the Order giving information. I'd be controlled, sculpted by him ready as a final weapon." Harry sat down with a thump. He could hear a tapping, he assumed it was the fire.

"So I worked it out." Harry said to himself.

"On your own."

"Sirius, you're not really here, you're dead." Harry looked up, sadness in his eyes, but no longer upset or angry with himself.

"Yes you know it. And now you're thinking where do you go now…"

_Yes._

"Yes." There was a tapping again, Harry still ignored it.

"Think about it." Prompted the dream-Sirius.

"He's going to give me time, though not too much, he wouldn't want me to figure it out, but I can't do anything."

Yes I can, what did Hermione say 'there's loads of old books that aren't even in the restricted section in the Black library'.

"Funny thing memory, you remember things that you weren't even paying attention to." Sirius got up and started to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Harry ran to catch up with Sirius as they walked further into the void. There was louder tapping.

"I'm always here, I am you, just think about everything that happened, you need to get around the fences that they put up before you can explore the forest."

"And I thought Dumbledore was cryptic, now I'm doing it to myself." .Tap.

"What is that noise?" Harry said suddenly.

"An owl." Sirius said and disappeared into the void.

"An owl, who could…."

Harry nearly fell out of his bed he rose so quickly, all the information he had worked out still in his head. He went to brush tears away as had become the norm after his dreams of Sirius, but found that there were none. Hedwig gave a mournful hoot, and looked to the window which had closed itself enough not to let owls in, despite that Hedwig was inside.

Harry followed her line of sight and saw a brown school owl frantically tapping on the window, he didn't let it in, but took the letter nonetheless.

_Harry,_

_While Sirius's death must still lie heavily on you I must ask you to listen._

_There are things that you now know that no one should even have the possibility of finding out, as such the Order will be bringing you to Grimmauld Place in 2 weeks. I believe this is the best course of action._

_Disregard any mail from anyone besides myself, the owls are not safe, burn any letters your receive._

_It is essential you do not communicate with anyone._

_Do not leave the house, it is not safe in the current climate._

_Albus Dumbledore_

Harry glared at the letter before opening the window letting the owl out.

Things were going to change, but first Harry needed to work out a plan for himself.

-/

_A/N:_

_Mostly this is a rewrite with stuff removed from the original chapter 1. Significantly there's a new intro into the chapter which ties into the end of this story_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Harry arose after a particularly good night's sleep, better than he had for the past few nights at least.

That was one good thing that had come from Dumbledore's constant requests for information about what happened with his dream-state encounters with Voldemort. He remembered a lot more of the things during and on either side of sleeping than he used to.

Not that before Hogwarts and magic he wanted to remember much of his life before sleep. His dreams and the cupboard were the only escape from the world that was his life and servitude with the Dursleys.

Later that night after a particularly boring day, though it seemed his aunt had decided that the surrounds of the house was alright, and so put him to work weeding. Though it was nice to escape from the confines of the house, albeit to work for his aunt.

Harry stared at the ceiling wondering what his night's sleep would bring tonight. As he closed his eyes he felt the agony of the _Crucio_ spell course through his body, right through to his bones.

Then the potions lab at school formed around him like mist.

Then there was Snape pointing his wand at him as he tried to fight the assault on his mind, just like the last time Snape attacked him.

Then there was a rush and he felt his mind tunnelling into Snape's wand, like water travelling down a pipe.

Then he was inside Snape's memories, just like last time.

"What's this then? Said the spider to the fly." Harry said to himself as he looked around. The memory, of the memory or whatever it was was moving fast, faster than last time.

"STOP!" He shouted at the top of his voice, or maybe he thought it, he wasn't sure. Everything shuddered and stopped like the wobbling that happened when a video was paused. Everything was still shuddering and wobbling as he took a moment to look around.

Everything was very dim, and the wobbling, jumping nature of the memory did not help matters.

Inside this room, or whatever it was, slowly out of the gloom he was able to make out several trunks, like the school trunks but these were hard fortified things. They had names on them, at least some of them had names that he could make out. One said **Hogwarts**, another which was practically scrawled said **James Potter**, there were others that he couldn't make out the names of.

Then, much like a video the pause seemed to let go and the memory snapped back into motion and he was promptly ejected from the memory.

_Is that what occlumency is supposed to look like?_ Harry wondered to himself as he returned to the world of the waking.

-/

"I have two weeks before _he_ comes." Harry said to himself, and he wasn't allowed to leave the house. Though as his weeding adventures the previous day had shown he could leave the house, albeit the back garden. Which probably meant that it wasn't a spell, or something, it was someone watching him. Or several people watching him.

Then Hedwig gave a hoot as another owl flew up to his window, it was carrying a long box.

"Could someone be sending me a shrunken head with a shrunken body?" He asked Hedwig who just stared at him in the way that all owls tended to do.

"Do you think it's safe?" He asked his snowy white owl, the only intelligent creature other than himself in the house. The Dursleys barely rated above earthworms.

Hedwig gave the owl equivalent of a shrug.

As he unwrapped the box he could hear something liquid in there, as he continued to unwrap it he found a bottle and a letter.

_Harry,_

_There's nothing we can say, but one thing we learnt from our fellow Marauders was that life is to live, to have fun and enjoy._

_So have a drink on us! Though not the whole bottle (although that would be impressive, and messy). _

_Remember that most problems have answers, and that taking another path is the most interesting. Don't look for the the stairs when a broom can do!_

_Fred and George_

_WWW_

The bottle revealed itself to be vessel of crimson liquid which proclaimed itself to be **Firewhiskey Aged 378 years**.

"Which is a very odd number." Harry mused to himself as he looked around the label, there were no other indications aside from the intricately designed label on the front, on the back there was nothing like the barcodes, warnings, recommended size of drinks or other products made by the same producer that regular bottles contained.

Looking to the clock it revealed that it was 8:42 am, and therefore far too early for a drink.

"But I'm Harry Potter." Harry said to himself in a mocking tone, remembering all the various people who proclaimed, when he'd first gone to Hogwarts that he was Harry Potter, scar and all.

Removing the cork he sniffed the liquid, it was warm and sort of like a rich fire, almost like the one in his dream. But also bright and fruity.

He took a tentative sip of it and war rewarded with a feeling spreading down into his stomach of warmth and comfort.

Considering all the horrible potions of the wizarding world and the initially peculiar taste of butterbeer he wasn't sure what he was expecting.

Then, spurred on by his small act of rebellion in the early hours of the day he made a decision.

"Go out for a hunt Hedwig." Harry said as he opened her cage and the window. Then he grabbed his money bag, wand and invisibility cloak.

Slowly padding down the stairs which did not creak of make any noise, something he knew because he had spent much time fixing and bracing them against his uncle and cousin's copious weight.

Pausing in the kitchen he grabbed a cup, filling it with water and stepped out into the back garden. He chucked the water to both sides of him, with it landing on nothing.

_Obviously only monitoring the front, which explains why I could weed the back without interference_.

He walked carefully to the back fence which was still broken after Dudley and his friends had been doing whatever it was they did, it was one of the things he'd been ordered to fix, and yet got around to do.

Once he was out into the laneway that ran behind the house he paused.

"Now what…?" He said to himself.

_A/N:_

_Again a chapter that has remained mostly unchanged from the original. I've removed all the fluff, the padding that was in the original chapter and cut it back to its basics._

_Harry talks to himself a lot less in this version of the story, more introspection and thought with less actual dialogue to himself._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_1 week later._

Harry leaned against the Journeyman's trunk and stared into the fire, the remains of his dinner and the half filled Firewhiskey bottle next to him.

He was nicely drunk, musing on how he'd got to sitting on a badly transfigured cushion in front of a crackling fire somewhere in the middle of Scotland. The cushion was lumpy but it was keeping his arse from getting wet.

It was one of the things he had forgotten to buy during his shopping spree in Diagon Alley the previous week.

Although the shopping was the bonus from what he'd learnt while he was there.

_Flashback…_

"Owls were sent informing you of the will of Mr Black. That is why you have come?" Said the goblin who hadn't given his name. Harry felt somewhat intimidated by the goblin, looking down at him from the high desk.

Even though it was only the two of them in the room he still felt like he was being watched. Moody would probably think that was a good thing Harry reflected.

Harry shook his head. "I didn't know anything about a will." Harry said, and felt like saying that he'd only just accepted Sirius' death. "And I've not received any owls."

The goblin peered at him over his glasses. "I see." He said and pushed one of the many buttons on his desk and said something in a language that was not English.

A moment later another goblin came into the room pushing a trolley that contained a number of small cages containing owls and thing on top that looked like a shallow pensive with a rubbery screen on top of it.

Harry listened as the goblin explained that it was a pensive for owls, that memories could be extracted using some sort of magic much like, though not the same as a pensive and shown on the screen.

"We use this in cases such as these." The goblin said ominously, Harry wasn't sure what the implication was.

An owl was placed in the basin where it sat as its memories were read whilst the goblin who had brought the trolley in conversed with the goblin whom Harry had been speaking with.

"Now we shall see Mr Potter." The screen pulsed into life and showed an image bobbing up and down, and then as the owl was gliding downwards he saw Privet Drive, number 4 come into view.

Then as it was flying up to his room there was a pulse of purple light, then the owl was flying back away from the house.

The was more Gobbledegook, Harry recalled now, the language of the goblins between the pair.

Harry nodded watching the screen and thinking back to his earlier experiences in his dreams.

"Could we" he paused as the goblins looked at him. "Could we watch it again slower, maybe something we might be able to see, that we missed at full speed?" he said somewhat unsure.

There was more Gobbledegook and then memory played again, slower.

As they watched it again the goblin slowed it down to the point where there was a purple light.

On the edges of the purple light Harry pointed. "There, it looks like the shimmering."

"From an invisibility cloak." The goblin finished. "You're aware then of surveillance on your residence Mr Potter?"

Harry laughed. "Like a prison." he said.

"Let us view the second owl, we sent more than one, when this returned." He explained.

There was a similar bobbing of the image and then the owl flew down and met a figure that was waiting on the grass at the front of the house.

There was once more a similar purple spell shot, but then the owl, or rather the image settled and it seemed the owl was sitting on one of the shrubs in front of the house.

"….can't…Harry…this…return…" a voice could be heard on the pensive.

"Could we make that bit louder?" Harry asked.

"Gringotts. [There was a tearing sound], can't let Harry find out about this. Return." Harry recognised the voice of the wizard as owl took off once more.

"I'm sure we both recognise the voice of the Supreme Mugwump." Harry said as he sat down with a thump into his chair.

"Yes." The goblin said. "It is something you appear knowledgable about."

"Something I have realised recently about him." Harry commented.

"This act casts further criminality on Mr Dumbledore's actions. The day this letter was sent Mr Potter, Albus Dumbledore arrived here attempting to claim Mr Black's will, claiming your permission was given allowing full access to the Black Estate." The goblin paused.

"Charges will now be brought against Mr Dumbledore concerning fraud and other matters." He said.

Harry grinned at this.

"Mr Black's will left everything of the Black Estate to you." The goblin began, barely pausing between the stating of charges against Dumbles and this new information. Harry was beginning to regret that drink he'd had. "There are several properties and many other titles in the estate. Mr Black attempted to emancipate you, however this is not possible until you are 16." He paused and looked at him. "New Ministry laws." Then he continued. "Your magical protector is Remus J Lupin." He seemed to be waiting for a reaction.

"What's the difference between a protector and a guardian?" Harry asked.

"A guardian is someone who has the same rights as a parent and this covers the magical and non-magical worlds. A protector is just for the magical world. Previously to you claiming Mr Black's will your protector was a…" The goblin paused for a moment.

"Who?"

"Mr Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Shouldn't have asked." Harry muttered.

"A letter was left for you, all monies have been transferred to a new account with new key for you Mr Potter, only you and your protector may access it." He passed a letter to him.

_Harry,_

_You know and I know, however I went out I went out having fun or fighting. _

_You should live your life, not the way Dumbledore says you should._

_Explore, have some fun and more importantly live, protect yourself and enjoy it while you're at it, go where you want do what you want, fate is for the seers._

_Anything can wait for a rainy day. And even then remember an umbrella._

_Enjoy it Harry, enjoy it._

_Sirius 'Snuffles' Black_

-/

_Present…_

The fire crackled and a log exploded, Harry motioned with his wand, hovering another piece of wood into the fire and marvelled at the total lack of Ministry letters.

That day he'd also had the 'Trace' which he'd found out that was what it was called removed from his wand. That had come at considerable expense, but well worth it.

He'd also gained a considerably new wardrobe full of the exquisite and the practical items including a rather marvellous basilisk leather jacket which appeared like a regular leather jacket…more or less, but also adjusted for all sorts of temperatures. The same went for the shirts and pants he now wore, practical and comfortable. The shoes also, he wiggled his feet, basilisk also and just as comfy and indestructible. Well practically anyways. It felt good, considering the pain he went through at the hands metaphorically speaking of one.

There was though one other thing that he had found when he'd paid the (considerable amount) to get the Trace removed from his want. It wasn't the only thing that was on his wand.

There had also been a significant amount of spells on his wand, added by you know who, well not him. The other one beard, sweets, twinkles. Harry mused to himself.

They had been dealt with, and would lead Dumbledore on a merry chase around the world.

_Previously…_

"So you can split the tracking spells off my wand onto several objects?" Harry asked.

The man nodded, he remained in shadow out of Harry's view, this was he'd claimed so if recalled in a pensive he wouldn't be identifiable.

"Good." Harry said and indicated the man to do so.

_Present…_

Hopefully Dumbledore would be off to the various corners of the Earth searching for him.

Harry wasn't even sure, at this point that he wanted to return to Hogwarts and Dumbledore.

He had a full stock of potions, a bunch of choice books and thanks to an overheard conversation in Knockturn Alley a trunk full of "muggle" weapons that a wizard had acquired through some dodgy deal.

To top it all off he had a new wand; basilisk venom, centaur hair, the ash of a phoenix and Australian magical Red-gum. "An interesting mix." The wand seller who he'd found on the edge of Knockturn had said.

Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do with the two wands, but this new, second wand felt as good in his hand as his original, and both were not in wand holsters.

Harry sighed and pulled himself up to get his bed roll out of his new trunk. Inside this new folding and shrinking trunk was now all his possessions. He had left the Dursleys with nothing of himself. Only a warning to his Aunt, his only connection to his mother left. That Voldemort or Dumbledore might come seeking him, the latter he was sure of. That it might make sense of her to go somewhere.

As far as his uncle and cousin they could go hang.

Hedwig was the only thing missing from his adventuring here, her he had sent to Hermione, at least with Hermione she'd get plenty of work sending letters and whatever and she'd be safer and well kept for than with anyone else he could think of.

-/

Meanwhile, whilst Harry was settling down for a comfortable night under the stars, various sorts of shit was about to hit whatever passed for a wizarding fan. Dumbledore was returning to his office having not been in there since school had finished.

Dumbledore had spent the last 10 days organising things at Grimmauld Place, coaxing with very little encouragement to Severus into yet again delving and breaking down barriers in young Harry's mind, Severus almost relished it… Harry would cope.

It was for the greater good after all and anything extra learnt was all the better for him and the rest of the wizarding world.

"Even after last year he still wanted to tell me everything." Albus muttered to himself as he walked the long corridors of Hogwarts, he felt more at home here than any where more so after spending 10 days at the House of Black residence.

He had spent more than one Order meeting convincing them that it was time for Harry to join, Molly Weasley had put up the various protests, but he agreed to induct Hermione and Ronald as advisors, which did nothing to satiate Molly, but Arthur seemed to calm his wife from a total hysterical berating.

Nodding to the gargoyle he climbed the stairs as he walked in the door Albus knew something was wrong, looking at the various pieces of equipment that Harry had smashed in their last meeting, all repaired he then looked at his desk where a map should have been showing the location of the tracking trams that were deeply embedded in Harry's wand.

Albus almost swore. Rushing over to the fireplace he threw some floo powder in.

"Number 12 Grimmauld Place." It was Remus who answered.

"Albus, you look terrible." Remus said trying to lighten the dark look on Albus's face.

"All the tracking charms have gone haywire, all the tracking charms on Harry's wand, have gone haywire." Albus corrected himself before taking a breath. "Remus get together whoever is at headquarters and floo here we need to start a search." Remus nodded and disappeared.

Albus went and sat in his chair savouring a lemon drop while he stared at the various tracking charms. According to them Harry was somehow in France, America and Brighton and also what worried Albus most possibly in great pain, a portion of the charm registered as being splattered through a large area. That could indicate his wand was destroyed, but he had placed the charms very carefully, they were tied to his living being, if Harry died, the spell would too.

"Didn't anyone notice? I should have been here…" Albus muttered to himself as he took another lemon drop.

Someone was chuckling behind him. Albus whipped around, any quicker would have given himself whiplash.

"What is it Phineas?" Albus grumbled at the painting.

"He's a member of my family now Dumbledore."

"Harry?" Albus stared up at the painting.

"Oh yes, but I think I'll let him do the talking, that is (Phineas looked down at Dumbledore) if you locate him." Before Dumbledore could question he had wandered off.

At that point Minerva and the rest of the Order arrived in his office. Slowly rising he addressed the few members of the order that were present.

"I have just found out that Harry may have disappeared." Before outcry could happen Albus continued. "The tracking charms seem to be pointing to four different points, we shall have to go to each of these and find Harry, Death Eaters may have taken him." Albus picked up three crystal balls off his desk. "Molly, Arthur, Kingsley, take this it is a portkey, it also acts as a tracker, it will track the charms on Harry. Please, everyone as you track Harry do not tell anyone that it is Harry you are tracking." Molly & Arthur Weasley and Kingsley all touched the ball and they disappeared all the while Molly wailing about Harry "The poor boy…"

"Tonks, Remus, Hestia. This should take you to the location of the tracking charms." Remus seemed to gain grey hairs just taking the orb.

"Hagrid could you and Amos take this one."

"Severus, Moody, we shall be going to the fourth location." Albus pulled out a fourth ball and they disappeared in a swirl of light.

Much, much later Albus Dumbledore looked down at the pieces of what had once been a silver goblet.

They had been retrieved from various countries around the world. From Beauxbatons, the Salem Institute and other such locations.

"Now you've got 3/4 of a cup." Moody chuckled at him.

"Harry must be located." Dumbledore said calmly.

"If he's gone to these lengths to escape your clutches how should we drag him back?" Moody asked.

"If necessary bound and in chains." Severus answered from the rear of the office.

Albus looked up and looked at Severus who was not helping matters.

"I agree in essence with Severus, yes. Harry must be brought back to train, to understand the danger of the situation." Dumbledore said rising from his chair to look over the assorted members of the Order.

"Harry's managed to escape your" Lupin paused. "_Guards_. If he's left, I think it was with good reason." Lupin paused looking to Tonks.

"He's seen more than most Aurors Professor, things that would shock people twice his age." She paused. "But obviously he needed to get away, maybe if he wasn't with those relatives of his."

"I won't be joining the war Albus." Lupin said rising from his chair.

"You will." Dumbledore began. "The war-"

"If Harry can't have a life before he's thrust into it, what's the point of fighting?" Tonks asked as she rose and joined Lupin as he exited the office.

"I'll be taking my leave Albus also." Moody grunted and followed Tonks and Lupin.

"If Potter wants to go off and get himself killed I for one won't stand in the way." Severus looked between the remaining few and walked out.

"Albus, you are going to search for him?" Molly asked her voice already loud and rising accusingly.

"As soon as I have some firm information, either from Severus or my own sources, yes, but for now we do not have the resources to search aimlessly. Get Ronald to speak to Hermione about Harry see if they can shed any light. Until the next order meeting, then we'll formulate a plan." Molly looked to Arthur before noticing Dumbledore was holding out a pot of floo powder. Evidently it was time to go.

Once they had left Albus sat down and wrote a short note to Harry, demanding he return to the safety of Grimmauld Place and the order, or to know where he was, and then looked to Fawkes.

Offering it to Fawkes, he looked at it and then at Dumbledore, and then seemed to shake his head and flew back to his perch. Softly trilling.

Albus sighed to himself, this was not how he envisioned this year going.

-/

_A/N:_

_Harry's visit to Diagon Alley and his initial travelling and what Dumbledore does, what the Order does, the tracking spells have now all been compressed down to a single chapter. _

_I guess what is significant is what's missing from this chapter. The several original characters from Diagon Alley have been expunged. Likewise all the Goblins (with names) have also gone, they're now just various random Goblins with no particular affinity for Harry nor him them._

_Much of the stuff involving the Order is from the original chapter(s)._

_I got rid of all the Diagon Alley stuff just because I found it very plodding, it wasn't something that advanced the story, and it was in there because I was indulging in the universe. When I came to read it for this edit I just wanted to scroll through and ignore it. It was something that lots of people did with Independent!Harry stories, and something I intended __**not**__ to do when I wrote this originally, but somehow fell into the same trap of Harry visiting the Goblins, doing shopping etc._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 04**

Harry had been wondering around the forests and other bits of Scotland for a week or two now, with no sign of anyone or anything.

The fresh air and freedom to do what he wanted had done wonders for his learning and exploration of his magic.

He had felt as though Privet Drive would push, compress his ability to express himself down, push the magic in his body away into a small corner of his body whenever he was there, so when he'd return to Hogwarts each year he'd feel lethargic, removed from magical areas and removed from all support that he had at Hogwarts and around people that actually cared whether he lived or died.

Or at least _some_ people.

He wasn't so sure about Dumbledore, he definitely cared if he lived, though only to do final battle with Voldemort.

As he walked over the next hill he saw a house, he'd seen a few on his wanderings, but this was the first that looked in sort of good condition, but also one that had been destroyed by something.

There was a burnt out car at the front of it and everything looked over grown and destroyed.

Curiously he walked over to it.

It was when he passed whatever threshold into the property that he felt it, a tingling sensation across the skin, the same as when he'd visited the Weasleys, or Hogwarts or anywhere, a sense of magic in the air.

Harry looked back to the burnt out car. "So what are you doing here?"

Removing his wand from the holster he gingerly moved forward, pausing to pull the straps on his backpack which contained the journeyman's trunk and other thing he used day to day when he didn't want to open up the trunk.

The house he could see was larger than he first thought, but was also the sight of a battle, bits of it had caved in and trees and plants had grown through the caved in areas.

It looked Italian, a judgement he based on having seen magazines that his aunt had made him look at when she wanted him to plant in a particular style, whatever took her fancy was what he was forced to do.

Harry forwent the front doors which were burned and charred and instead made his way to one of the sides that had been destroyed.

As he approached he got the same tingling in his body, a fizzing sensation that he'd felt when he'd faced Voldemort.

It was something he'd never been taught, though some of the books he'd picked up when he'd been shopping said that frequent or sometimes infrequent users of magic could detect traces of it, without a wand. Which was as good as to say that anyone might be able to feel magic.

"A battle was fought here." Harry said, he'd long given up trying to stop talking to himself and instead embraced it.

It had taken him until nightfall to explore the house which was all laid out over mostly one level, there was a second level in the middle of the house, but it had collapsed inwards. Given what he'd found so far the upstairs were probably the bedrooms as he'd found no evidence of bedrooms on the ground floor.

There were other interesting things; a kitchen which was mostly intact, a bathroom not so much and then the two other things which were most notable.

A library which appeared to hold a mix of regular and magical books, some seeing the effects of damp, mildew and general exposure to the elements and what remained of a potions laboratory. That was where a majority of the damage to the house was, it seemed that was where a large amount of the battle had happened, with whatever had been in the potions lab being let free with wild results.

In parts he'd found tropical fruit, in other corners there were things he'd only seen in his text books, and yet it was all growing in this bit of the house.

Harry decided to make camp here for a few days, the weather appeared to be turning for the worse and being here was the perfect place to stop and muse on where to go next and what to do.

Two days later Harry was standing in what had become a forest at the back of the house. In his hands was a 'muggle' handgun.

He cursed himself calling it a muggle anything, 2 days stuck inside reading various magic and regular books while the weather raged outside.

He'd drawn a few conclusions, the occupants of the house had been friendly with muggles, and from the damage and the age the newspapers he'd found in a corner whoever these people were they had been part of the magical war, the one his parents had died in.

Now though he wanted to test the handguns and the other weapons he'd managed to procure.

They hadn't come with any instructions but the library did have several books on muggle weapons.

A part of him felt concerned by this fortuitous discovery, but considering the state of the house, if he was setting a trap for himself he would have put something nicer in his path.

A distillery would have been nice, with some friendly people to greet him and talk to. Instead he'd got a dark gloomy, windy house with bugger all else. A fireplace that worked a kitchen where he could cook and boil water. Oh, and a bath, which was nice.

The water came from some spring, which was also nice, though he'd discovered a river where fish could be had. _Could_ being the operative word.

The clip in the gun was full of bullets and he'd burned a target into one of the trees.

"Can I do it?"

_Shoot at a tree?_ The side of his mind that had become increasingly cynical with the lack of people to talk to and the occasional bouts of learning occlumency.

"This was made for killing and I will be killing people. People have died. People like…" Harry trailed off but forced himself to continue. "People like Sirius, like Cedric." He said as he slid his thumb onto the safety and flicked it off.

There was a finality of that, the thing in his hands only held one purpose, it was unlike a wand, unlike anything like that. It had one purpose.

To kill.

"But by using it I'm protecting people." Harry continued. "Protecting myself." Harry looked down the gun and focused on his target and squeezed the trigger.

The noise surprised him and the kick back. Flicking the safety back on he could feel his heart pounding.

Then he walked the distance down to the tree, he was very far off the target and only just had clipped the tree.

But it was a start.

Aside from the many handguns there were several shotguns. These he expected would be somewhat easier to use.

Though expectation and reality were two separate things.

Harry returned to the house that evening having discovered that theory and reality were two quite separate things.

The books just revealed more questions, there were, unsurprisingly a lot of spells to do with potions.

Many exploring how to replicate spells _as_ potions. Harry wasn't sure why you'd want a spell as a potion. Unless it was like a contact poison, that was something he'd heard about in school when they were learning history or something.

Like how people used to assassinate opponents using poison.

"And fortunately I have the remains of a potions lab to try all of these, and no greasy git to tell me I'm going to melt a cauldron." Harry looked over at the door that, along with a few spells was keeping the weather out of the library, the room that he'd sealed as best he could to make the room to study and sleep in.

"It's not as though I could make things any worse here." Harry mused to himself as he heard more wind rush through the old broken house. It sounded like a storm was brewing.

-/

Grimmauld Place was also feeling the brunt of the storm beginning to move on Harry's location. Although while Grimmauld Place was somewhat better protected than where Harry was it still had its issues.

The Order's secret headquarters seemed to be rebelling against it's occupants as the storm began to rage up.

All the windows and doors had flown open, letting in great gusts of wind all the while an Order meeting was attempting to be conducted.

"Albus is there any word from Harry?" Molly shouted above the wind.

Albus shook his head whilst waving a wand at the doors they blew shut and everyone sighed in relief as the noise of the wind was cut out, before the doors to the kitchen and the back garden blew open forcing the doors to entrance to blow open. Throwing a bit more magic at the doors Albus managed to shut and lock them, however as he was casting a locking charm he failed to notice the wind pick up and throw a moaning Kreacher, with considerable force into the doors which Dumbledore had just locked.

The old house elf hit the doors with loud splat, the elf's neck and several other bones breaking in the process. With that the hurricane like wind promptly dissipated just leaving the gusty breeze.

Everyone was looking at Dumbledore in shock as he calmly walked over to the kitchen doors and locked them with strong magic just as he did the others.

Everyone in the Order was still looking at the little house elf's blood slowly pooling on the floor.

"No Molly, there hasn't been any word from Harry. I have even asked Fawkes to take many letters to him Fawkes has simply refused. Severus is there any word from Voldemort?" Severus turned from the dead elf and made a worse face at the Order at the mention of Harry's name.

"There hasn't been much. The Dark Lord is still re-thinking his actions since Potter's stunt at the Department of Mysteries. He has however assigned many within the inner circle to…what was it, ah yes 'create fear and terror in the muggle pigs'." Snape said almost relishing the idea, practically enjoying the looks of worry and disgust from the Order.

"How poetic." Moody muttered his magical eye spinning around to stare at Snape.

"And of Harry?" Albus whispered.

"The Dark Lord grows annoyed that he cannot reach Potter. What of Potter's friends, they would run to him for anything?" Snape leaned back in his chair casting a look at Remus.

"Mr Weasly and Miss Granger know nothing. Of Mr Potter's location, or indeed anything else you might want to know."

"What if someone has captured him and taken him hostage, he's just a young boy…" Molly wailed as she did whenever the topic of Harry's whereabouts came up.

"Harry can look after himself." Remus had been regretting coming to the meeting ever since he arrived, he thought to himself looking around at Tonks and Moody that they had obviously been tricked into coming as well.

"Why are we here Dumbledore, you said there was important life or death information to discuss." Moody said staring at the Headmaster his magical eye staring the same direction.

"Ah yes, I had wanted to ask if you had had any contact with Harry since we last spoke." Albus twinkled at the three, it was Tonks who felt the tingling in her mind first.

"Albus you wouldn't be trying to get at information in my head would you?" Tonks said as sweetly as possible, that gained glares from Remus and Moody directed at Dumbledore.

"Of course not." Albus smiled around the room.

"There's obviously nothing to be said here, I think I'll be leaving." As Moody pushed open the door connecting to the entry room, the wind that was trying to enter the house promptly dissipated. Then as the Order members started to file out they heard Dumbledore's voice.

"…the untimely death of Kreacher and as there is no controller of the Black Estate I shall be taking over of ownership of Grimmauld Place." Albus almost grinned as he know he had taken care of the notice of Black's will a while ago.

"I'm afraid you won't be Dumbledore." Two voices in unison called out across the room making most of the order spin around and stare at the two paintings, one which had just materialised facing them.

"Phineas, what…"

Remus, Moody and Tonks weren't sure who to stare at Dumbledore or the two paintings. Dumbledore looked surprised bordering on angry.

"Am I doing here? Hello Walburga, time to accept the truth." Phineas softened as he spoke to Mrs Black.

"Phineas, with Kreacher gone, my darling Kreacher, yes but everything must be honoured as is the Black way." She signed

"As I said with Kreacher dead, I may take control here." Albus said as he walked up toward the paintings.

"Not by Sirius's will. With the Lord of the Estate not here, which is probably best, control of this house and others within the estate falls to-" Phineas was interrupted.

"The Wolf." Mrs Black interrupted.

"Yes thank you Walburga. As I was saying as Lord Harry James Potter, sole holder of the Black estate is not yet 16 as decreed by Sirius Orion Black's will emancipated, his protector is Mr Remus J. Lupin. Mr Lupin whilst protector you control anything that happens in Grimmauld Place, you cannot sign, give or do anything that may be against Lord Potter's wishes. Any former claims to being Harry James Potter's protector are now void." Phineas grinned from his position in the painting down at Dumbledore.

"Albus I think it's time for you to leave." Remus said from a corner of the room.

"But Remus we still have Order business to attend to." Dumbledore started, trying to be reasonable.

"You can stay as long as you tell me why A; No one knew about you being Harry's protector and B; actually Phineas you may know this one. How did Harry find out about Sirius's will. No don't answer that." Remus stopped the painting before thinking "Phineas, to the best of you knowledge was an owl sent informing Harry of Sirius's will and did an owl reach Harry relatives house? Just yes or no."

"Yes to both Mr Lupin." Phineas answered immediately, as if it were an order.

"But Harry never received an owl…. Dumbledore, everyone in the order please leave." All of the Order looked between Remus and Dumbledore then to each other before apparating away. Dumbledore and Snape remained, Tonks and Moody stayed by Remus's side.

"Remus you must understand that I did not know anything of this." Dumbledore was still twinkling at the trio.

"Wol… Mr Lupin." Mrs Black chocked from her painting.

"Yes Mrs Black." Remus looked to the portrait.

"There is a little know fact about the Black family, whilst we do not have any ghosts in our properties, there is one member we can call on. Phineas…"

"Yes Walburga. Peeves!" Phineas disappeared whilst yelling at the top of his voice.

A poltergeist poured out of Phineas's painting grinning.

"Peeves please escort Mr Dumbledore and Mr Snape off a property of the Ancient and most noble house of Black."

Peeves nodded before wrapping large arms around the two teachers and pushed them towards the open door before floating back in shutting the door.

"Thank you Peeves, you may return to Hogwarts." Peeves nodded.

"Thank you Post-Mother, Post-Father." He said sadly before disappearing.

The trio, even Moody was speechless.

"It is a little known fact that Peeves is related to the Blacks. He was the youngest son many millennia ago when Hogwarts had been open less than 100 years, he was playing a practical joke but tripped and fell to his death. If you have ever met the delightful Bellatrix you would see the resemblance." Phineas chuckled.

"The house is now yours. I requested two house elves to come to assist you until Harry returns. They seem to hold Harry in great respect.

"Why have you dropped all the Lord Potter stuff now?" Tonks asked inquisitively couldn't help herself.

"Nymphadora, that was just to annoy Dumbledore." Phineas said earnestly, Mrs Black cackled disconcertedly in the background.

Two pops appeared behind them.

"Mr Lupin sir. Mr Phineas asked Winky and Dobby to come now that evil Kreacher has died."

"Dobby you don't…" Lupin started to say.

"Mr Lupin, Dobby and Winky both want to serve Harry or friend of Harry." Dobby smiled as did Winky.

"Well come on Lupin. Give em an order." Phineas prompted.

"Umm, could you clean up and arrange three bedrooms for myself and my friends?" Lupin said unsurely.

"We will most definitely do that Mr Lupin sir, Winky shall also start on dinner for Mr Lupin and Mr Lupin's friends." Winky announced before popping away, and then popping back.

"Mr Lupin, should Winky clean away evil Kreacher?"

"Yes Winky, please." Lupin whispered.

"Well Remus you're Harry's protector, better you than Dumbledore." Moody grumbled before sitting himself down next to Phineas's portrait.

"Why was Kreacher dying such a big thing?" Lupin whispered to himself.

"That my friend is a very good question." Moody leant back on his chair looking from the doors where Kreacher's body had laid.

"An obscure family the Blacks, with obscure and interesting rules to fall back on, I'm sure Walburga has a better idea about it than my humble self, she after all enacted it."

Phineas looked down at the three occupants and chuckled silently to himself, Mad Eye Moody, a cousin of the Blacks and a werewolf the protector of the mighty Lord to two great houses. How many Blacks would be turning in their graves? How many of the outcasts would be laughing. Phineas despite himself laughed out loud.

"What is it Phineas?" Grumbled Mrs Black who had toned down decidedly now that there was only three, or five of them in the house.

"Look around, I'm sure even you can appreciate the irony of who we have in a house of the ancient and most noble Black, and who now would stand at its head if he were here." Phineas laughed again. "I shall depart for now, I must look in and see how much of a fit Dumbledore is in. Farewell, call out if necessary, Lupin as Harry's protector you have many rights inside this house and out."

"So what's this family rule?" Tonks said as she tripped up the stairs.

"I'll save you the trouble of killing yourself on the stairs and come down to Phinea's painting. Much as I hate to leave my own beautiful portrait I don't want to have to stare at a corpse for all of time." Mrs Black grumbled.

"Wolf, you asked a question about the Black household, as bound by ancient law I must answer it." Lupin fell into a chair at this news.

"Don't call me Wolf, or I'll tear you up when there's a full moon." Remus stared angrily at the painting.

"Fine, Lupin. 'Why was Kreacher dying such a big thing?' the question you asked. The last of the Black family alive were; Regulas and Sirius and myself before I died. Kreacher who had been owned by our family was bound to out family."

"And he was part of the Blacks in some direct way." Tonks butted in grinning.

"Do please be quiet child." Mrs Black screeched at Tonks reminding all present of her previous antics.

"As you were saying." Moody prompted.

"As I was saying…Kreacher was bound to the family, as Regulas died Sirius was the last of the head of the Blacks and he was in prison. Kreacher was left in this house and was bound by law. With Sirius gone and no claim made, Kreacher was the last remaining faithful to the Black family, this afforded him status as a Black family member, Kreacher wasn't aware or it, but it stopped anyone from trying to take the Black Household. When Sirius returned Kreacher still had a degree of manipulative control, he had gone senile." Mrs Black said sadly.

"But why was Kreacher's death such a good thing for Dumbledore?" Lupin asked again.

"Because, Dumbledore must have assumed that my son hadn't made a will, or if he did it wouldn't reach his intended."

"Harry." The trio breathed.

"Yes. Mr Potter obviously got the will."

"So following that theory, Dumbledore thought he had all bases covered. He must have taken the opportunity to kill Kreacher in a 'harmless' way. Therefore not knowing Sirius had made a will out leaving Harry everything he wanted to jump in and take it all." Tonks jumped up and started pacing, Lupin and Moody staring at her.

"There is a mind in there. You obviously got the clumsiness from the muggle." Mrs Black harrumphed.

"Dumbledore certainly has got sneaky." Moody said rising and walking off in direction of the kitchens.

"Perhaps that's why Harry did a runner." Tonks also got up, squeezing Remus's shoulder as she followed Moody.

Remus rose slowly before turning to the portrait.

"Thank you Mrs Black, you have confirmed a lot for me. If Dumbledore or anyone in the Order arrives, could you inform me or the others please." Lupin said sadly before turning to go.

"Yes Mr Lupin." Walburga said calmly before disappearing from the painting.

-/

_A/N:_

_Like the previous chapter the Order parts are mostly intact from the original edits of the story. _

_Harry's parts though aren't, for anyone who's familiar with this story at this point would have involved distilleries and other things. _

_The discoveries he makes still happen, it just happens as a much more solo experience. _

_This is how I should have done it the first time around instead of introducing so many original characters. Solo and thoughtful Harry is also easier to write and read than lots of dialogue._

More A/N about the story as a whole:

_By now I have probably received some annoyed messages about my editing of this story. So I thought I'd explain a little further about why. _

_I had come to dislike, almost hate the story as it was. It was beginning to make me hate coming to this site and posting at all. It is a very demoralising thing to see something that you dislike that much all of the time, especially connected with stuff you do like. I had a choice between deleting it or editing it harshly to a point where __**I**__ was happy with it. _

_I think any writer needs to be at least happy with their work, it needn't be enjoyable, or pleasing to read for them, but I think they need to be happy with the finished product. Sorcery, UNITed, Independence, Space was none of those things. In fact it was the opposite, I did not like it, I was not happy with it, and on some occasions it made me want to delete my account and stop posting anything._

_This story now is at a point where I am mostly happy with it, I even don't mind reading it, but it's also not a story I would write today, but it is the story I should have written then._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 05**

The storm had died down during the night and allowed Harry, after some thoughts and practice of his occlumency skills, which despite letting his somewhat more cynical side out into the open, and making him ignore the worrying trend of talking to was making a good amount of progress.

Today Harry had decided to try some potions, some he had done before in class an others, the contact potion spells that he'd seen in the books he'd been reading in the not so decaying library, not any more now that he'd sealed the room up and there was a fire going in the fireplace every night.

It was during the second half of his potions experiment, in amongst the over grown plants and other things where there was still enough of a bench to do his experiments that he discovered what he guessed was why this house and who ever had lived here was targeted.

In the books he was using someone had written notes in the margins and even the back of the book, musings on things. The notes suggested that these potions, and most others could be made by non-magical people - muggles.

Voldemort would have hated that suggestion, that muggles could use magic.

No wonder there was no one left here and the potions lab was destroyed, though obviously Voldemort hadn't sent his most intelligent Death Eaters.

"Not that there are any intelligent people if they're following Voldemort." Harry said to himself as he continued to stir the potion.

Then at the end of a long laborious process he had a pot of liquid stunning spell. It was viscous and red.

He wasn't really sure what to do with it though.

He decided to put it in one of his potion bottles and keep it safe within the large potion kit in his trunk until he worked out what to do with it.

There was also, in the book a potion for a killing curse like potion, though again he wasn't sure what he could do with it.

Sighing he decided to pack up his things; night was coming soon and the area he was in was well open to the elements.

Later that night after a meal of a fish he'd managed to catch and some vegetables that he'd found growing in the garden, he hadn't wanted to dip into the food he had with various charms on it to stop it from spoiling in his trunk. For now foraging around here felt good, he hadn't really worked out why.

He hadn't however gone the step to eat the tropical fruit that was growing in the remains of the potions lab, no matter how good it looked.

Now though he was relaxing in the bath, a low level warming charm under the bath kept the water warm for far longer than it should.

But it was a nice place to think now that he had cleaned it down from the mould and dirt it had accumulated over the past 20 plus years.

He had been musing on various encounters, or memories or whatever to do with Voldemort and wizarding fights. All that waving of their wands and saying things when what was needed was decisive action.

Which was what a gun provided. He was getting better with the handgun, but still not an expert.

The shotgun however provided a much better scatter approach to firing, he only needed to get vaguely near the target and fire and the shotgun shell did the rest.

If he coated the contents of the shell in the potion then he'd have easy delivery system for spells that would in the case of the stunner be more or less non-lethal and in the case of the killing curse it would mean he could kill several people in one shot.

"Is that what I want?" Harry mused as he slid under the water deep in thought.

He couldn't un-think what he'd just thought of.

The killing curse was one thing, one spell that if you wanted to kill had to do so several times.

"Or I could just float several people up to a height and let go." Harry said as he rose from under the water spitting out some in the process.

Several days later he'd managed to create both potions and find a couple of burrows of rabbits on which to test them on.

While his aim with the shotgun wasn't brilliant he was able to hit a few, and it seemed to work.

He left the rabbits to be eaten by whatever roamed around. He wasn't sure about eating potion killed rabbits.

It had been 2 weeks, Harry realised that he'd been here in this ruin, and a little under a month since he'd left the Dursleys, and despite living in a ruin he was feeling all the better for it.

But there were still several things that were niggling him, that scratching away at the back of his mind.

Or it could just be dust mites.

But mostly he was musing over the shady man whom he'd contracted the services of to remove the Trace, and also revealed that he had a tracking spell on his wand. The same spell he'd split off or copied or something onto pieces of an old goblet and sent for Dumbledore to go on a merry chase for.

It was the length of time it had taken the unnamed shady man to remove the tracking spells, compared to the relative swiftness with which he'd removed the Trace.

He'd spent an afternoon on a nice day that he could have been out at the river fishing looking through some of the books Hermione had mentioned he should buy at one point, which he had and never read them and also through some of the books he'd bought as part of his splurge in Diagon Alley, he also cross referenced some of the terms he'd found with some other books in his new found library that he was currently residing in.

What he'd found, or rather what he'd found based on what he recalled from what the shady man with a hard to see face had said when he was removing the spells was disturbing.

He'd had to sit and for long periods of time delve back through his memories to try and recall what the shady man had said.

Sirius, or the ghostly memory of Sirius had popped up and then promptly disappeared without giving any actual assistance. Harry didn't really give it any thought as to why his sub conscious didn't decide to render any actual assistance in the form of someone to talk to this time.

But no matter, he'd been able to help himself to his memories and he'd managed to come up with a list of words which were connected to spells for removing tracking spells.

The shady man had, Harry realised downplayed the exact nature of the tracking spells and how powerful they were.

Several of the spells had not, as he'd first thought actually been on his wand, but had been on **himself**.

"That's the problem with using shady people you get names of from goblins to help you." Harry had said to himself and wondered if late afternoon was too early to have a drink of his diminished bottle of firewhiskey. He had momentarily thought that it was bad that Hedwig wasn't around because he could have sent away for more. But down that road lay constant drunkenness and he probably would have coped better than he had when he'd worked out what Dumbledore had been doing during all those times when he'd been unconscious.

At least two of the spells that the shady man had removed were from within himself or on himself. That was why the man had looked so concerned at him. These spells were deep and powerful and could only be applied to a person who was deeply unconscious, because "_one's will could affect the spell's placement"._

There was another spell that, which Harry remembered the man removing because of all the hard sounds that he'd had to make the amount of wand waving involved. He'd stopped reading the side affects of using it on a 'living creature' after he'd read; psychotic episodes, unwanted flashbacks, mood swings, unbalanced behaviour, loss of appetite, increased metabolism, easily swayed emotions…the list covered a 2 pages of the moderately sized book which covered 2 columns. Some of them were magical things like; may alter breeding patterns of Cornish pixies, or this spell will draw ghosts to object.

Harry liked to think he dealt with the information that Dumbledore, and it could only have been Dumbledore had put possibly psychosis inducing spells that were intended and explicitly stated to only be used on inanimate objects in a calm and reasoned way.

And that was to take several weapons out into the nigh and shooting wildly while screaming obscenities at the moon.

The next morning Harry lay in the bath looking down at his shoulder and cursing his headache.

He'd also finished off the last of the firewhiskey after his screaming match with the moon and Dumbledore, the idea of Dumbledore that was, he'd needed something to warm his throat and had gotten carried away.

His shoulder and chest was from the kickback of the shotgun which he hadn't been paying much attention to throughout his angry tirade.

"Getting angry and shouting at the moon was not exploring and learning and living." Harry said as he was towelling himself off in the mirror following and extended time in the bath.

He was looking at the various scars spell marks on his body as he did so. The only people who had seen him shirtless as he was now were his Quidditch team mates, and probably Madame Pomfrey following whatever hell he went through at the end of every school year.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to be close to anyone, especially considering the people who he'd been close to were manipulative bastards like Dumbledore whom he'd placed all his trust in, or had died because of him, like Sirius.

And then there were his two best friends; Hermione and Ron.

But Ron worried him sometimes, his fiery temper and what had happened during the Tri-Wizard, he'd not forgotten that, but most of the time he thought of Cedric.

"Too many thoughts staring in the mirror." He said to his reflection and half expected it to talk back. But he'd not found any wizarding mirrors in this former-wizard's house.

At the Dursley's he never had the chance to muse after his shower in the morning or at night if he'd been forced to work during the day.

"Time to go and explore some more." He said to his reflection and was glad that it remained the same.

Harry looked around the house that he'd called his home for the past few weeks, he'd cleaned it up and repaired what had been broken back to the liveable standards.

He'd considered not taking anything with him as he left, but the potions book with all its notes and everything in it was too a valuable thing to not take. But he'd also decided to leave most of the library, with some preservation charms learnt from that very library around them.

There was one more book that had barely been touched that he'd considered taking with him; it was a book on apparition and disapparition.

He knew from the twins that this was an amazing thing, that all wizards could do it, the ability to move instantaneously by will or magic or something alone. But he'd started to read it, musing on how and what to do, and it just felt _wrong. _

Somewhere deep in his body it felt…he couldn't put a finger on what it meant but something within his bones or something it felt that it wasn't meant for him, or something.

He hoped he wasn't becoming psychic or something, _that_ would be terrible.

_He_ didn't want to be forever foretelling his own death at the hands whomever it was that wanted him dead. In addition to Voldemort that was.

Harry did, when he left the house and sealed it up as best he could look around and try and remember as many details of the outside as possible, that was something he did read in the apparition book, about knowing where to apparate to.

Because he did want to come back here, it had been a great place to stop and think and begin start anew the great journey of life.

-/

_A/N:_

_This is more of stuff that was originally in the story, just contracted and rewritten. Harry wasn't in a bath the last time around when he had all these thoughts. The setting of a ruin fits his musings and how he comes to these thoughts better._


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 06

The village was called Tellus and according to the information board as he came into the village was named after Gaia, which Harry thought initially was odd before a little voice reminded him of Hogsmeade.

It was interesting to note that it had a very large, considering the side of the village that was, scientific and regular library. It seemed there was a science centre that was going to be built here, but then different people had been elected and the science centre was shifted closer to Edinburgh. So this small village had a large library located in a faux-barn sort of structure within easy walking distance of everything in the village.

Which was the church, a pub and a general store/post office. The pub was where Harry had decided to stay upon arriving in the village.

He had a short time during which he had to convince the landlord that he was old enough to be travelling alone, but after that initial conversation he hadn't had any troubles since.

He'd taken to going to this fully kitted out library to help fill in some of his gaps in knowledge that he realised he had. And not just about who was in the charts and what a furby was.

But things that he assumed he should know by this point, but didn't, courtesy he supposed of learning magic and having a prophecy written about him.

It made him worry somewhat about what he would do, after Hogwarts.

But what made him happy, was that he was thinking about _after_ Hogwarts.

But no longer about a career within the Ministry, which was what he'd told McGonagall when they'd had to talk careers last year.

Today though Harry sat in the grounds of the library, which included various picnic tables and other nice places for the students and scientists who never came to sit and have lunch and talk about complex ideas or something. Today he sat musing on a torch he'd bought. He'd bought it to find his way around the village at night; the lights in the village were an aspect that had not been upgraded since the 50s or something.

The torch had batteries in it, and that had or made electricity in it, which when in the torch meant he could see without using his wand to cast _lumos_ which was a little conspicuous.

He'd already found out he could make spells as a liquid, albeit a viscous one.

But what about putting a spell in something so it could be used like a torch. He pushed the button on the torch and the light turned on again and he turned it off as he allowed himself to think.

As his thoughts drifted they came to land on Weasley's Wizarding Weases and other magic 'joke' shops, and how they and other stuff like that worked.

They were things that had been charmed or whatever was that it? Or did they do something more complex than going through a simple process like you would play a record?

Harry looked around before starting to talk to himself and then sighed and took out pad and paper. There wasn't anyone around but he felt less odd about it if he had something in his hands that wasn't the torch that he'd been turning on and off for the past few minutes or it could have been longer than that.

_A wand channels power, or magic or something. Fact. _He wrote.

_But you can apparate which doesn't need a wand._

_There's also portkeys, which have to have their own magic. _

_So what other things hold magic and how do you activate them?_

Harry sat back, or he would have done if the bench had a back, instead he leant back and reached out with his feet on the other side of the bench to balance himself so he could lean backwards without falling.

"If you put power in, whatever power it is…" Harry grabbed the torch again. "You can turn it on and off."

Harry wasn't sure how this was all relevant or what it meant but it felt good to get his mind thinking.

Deciding that was enough for the day he decided to pack his things away and wander back to the pub. On the way he passed as he always did the church, though on this occasion he paused at the gate again in thought.

Churches were old and they had power, he wasn't sure who said that or if it was just him talking to himself again.

The Dursleys weren't religious, except when they _needed_ to be, and he didn't believe in anything much really. Staying alive.

But people did, and that meant something.

Harry walked up the path and came to a stop at the doors to the church, he had the same, yet different sensation that he'd gotten when he'd walked over the threshold of that house, the same sort of feeling he got, he reflected when he'd first gone to Hogwarts.

He wasn't sure what it meant so he just left the building to its own devices and returned back to his lodgings.

-/

The next day Harry found himself back at the church, musing on what he'd mused on the previous day.

So much so he didn't notice the vicar as he walked up beside him.

"It is a wonderful old building isn't it?" He said.

Harry tried not to jump, but he did twitch, caught far too much in his own thoughts. He exhaled and nodded.

"I saw you here yesterday."

"I've been staying in the village." Harry turned and smiled offering the man his hand. "Harry Potter."

The man, the vicar took it. "Fitzwilliam Jeffries young man."

They remained in silence for a short time before the vicar spoke again. "Is there something you would like to know, there is a detailed history of the building, the previous vicar was something of a historian." He chuckled. "And I'm always finding out new things about it."

"I'm just thinking about power." Harry started and realised that made him sound like a megalomanic. "About how some places, buildings, locations and everything had power, and can hold it."

"Like faith." Mused the vicar.

Harry thought that was what he had to say, being a vicar and all.

"Something like that." Harry said, he pondered about asking the vicar if he could feel the fizzing sensation of the power or whatever it was on the building, but decided against it, he didn't want to get into a theological discussion. Especially considering he was only vaguely sure what a theological discussion was.

That night it was roast night and it seemed the whole village was in the pub, he'd forgone his spot he usually took; by the fire, so an older couple could sit there and instead sat at the bar.

He'd got a small half pint of ale, despite convincing the landlord that he was old enough to travel around on his own getting a drink had been a lot harder. But as long as he had a plated meal in front of him he could have a drink with the meal. Where he was sitting also afforded the perfect location to observe everyone entering and leaving the pub.

Then someone came in that Harry didn't recognise from around the village, not that he could claim to know everyone in the village, but they certainly knew that he was someone who wasn't from their little area, and when this man came in there was an exceptionally brief moment of something about the people seeing him. And then it had passed.

The man walked over to the opposite side of the bar, took a seat and ordered a pint.

Harry noted a few things about the man as he walked over to the other side of the bar.

For starters he had a weapon under his shoulder, he recognised this because he'd played with keeping one of the hand guns in a shoulder holster like that, and while it was a useful place to put it, it wasn't entirely comfortable and he was always sure that he could be seen with the weapon. Which would mean putting spells around it, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to do that yet.

The man had a moustache and the stance of someone who was used to being in charge of people. Not like Dumbledore though, sort of like the way Moody stood sometimes, like someone who knew the dangers of the world.

There also seemed to be something off about the man, but Harry wasn't sure what it was. Not bad, just...different.

He continued to watch the man for several more minutes in the mirror at the back of the bar. In between eating and drinking of course.

And then as he was finishing his meal, something deeply unpleasant happened; he heard several pops and cracks of apparition and then an explosion, followed by screams.

Which meant it wasn't a group of wizards taking a holiday to a sleepy village named Tellus, which would have been a lot nicer than what apparently was happening.

And then the windows exploded and spells slapped into the walls.

Harry was, by this point off his seat and rushing for the stairs up to his room. He practically burst through the door and grabbed his trunk, sitting enlarged at the foot of the bed and retrieved the shotgun and the remaining shells most were loaded with killing stuff, while a few were stunning potion stuff. Loading the shot gun with as many as he could and stuffing the rest into his pockets he threw everything else into the trunk and shrunk it once again.

Rushing back down the stairs he almost ran into the man he'd been observing, the man raised an eyebrow but, aside from having his hand in his jacket didn't say anything.

"Listen to me everyone!" Harry shouted at the top of his voice as more explosions went off outside. "The safest place right now is the church."

"Harry?" The vicar, Fitzwilliam came over from where he was speaking with people.

"Trust me, get in there with everyone and barricade the doors." Harry grinned at him. "Have faith."

Harry hoped that he was right, especially considering it was just random musing that had got him to that point. Though there must have been a reason for all the church and wizards stuff and the lack of any cheeriness on both sides regarding magic.

Harry gingerly opened the door to the pub and found a man in a Death Eater mask grinning at him.

And then he wasn't, and Harry realised he'd just shot and killed the man, he didn't let it concern him, much. He preferred to think of it as defending the people in the pub than killing them. For the moment in any case.

Outside it was…there was one word for it terrifying.

There was a woman in her nightgown being flown around outside above the town be laughing wizards, she was screaming her lungs out, another was doing something to a man who appeared to be loosing a lot of fluids in the process.

Then a light shone out from beside him, like a spell, but with no one casting it.

"Go, I'll deal with these bastards." Said the man who had the gun in the pub. Harry looked around as the man strode forward firing the gun which shot a spell quite reminiscent of the killing curse. But again, aside from a flash from the weapon which seemed to be made of wood, partially and yet of muggle construction.

Clearing the short path to the church he waved the pub goers across as the other Death Eaters cast the dark mark into the sky.

This seemed to attract more to the scene and Harry was forced to reload his shotgun on the fly, unsure of which shells he was loading it with. He was thankful he knew to get them round the right way. Pumping it he began to shoot once more as spells flew at him. The wizards realising this was not a mad muggle.

"Harry Potter, I always wanted to get to know you, before the Dark Lord of course." Said someone who stepped into his field of vision as he was finishing reloading. The man had been defending him as he reloaded.

Then a flurry of spells threatened to overwhelm them as he fired and the first shorts were obviously a not very well implemented stunning potion.

Flinging the shotgun over his shoulder he grabbed at his wand. "_Av_…" Harry steeled himself knowing that casting this curse would not be as simple as pulling a trigger, but stunners had not helped him thus far. "_Avada Kedavra." _He said as he gritted his teeth, yet it seemed casting this spell was not as hard as casting the _Crucio_ on Bellatrix.

The vicar was the last to come along the path of ground where he and the man with the gun and moustache was standing and keeping relatively safe. "Harry come along, you'll be safe in-" Then the vicar was shot, it wasn't a killing curse though. The vicar shouted but it didn't appear to be completely life threatening, if you didn't count the blood and bone matter that had splattered into Harry from the vicar's arm that had taken a spell.

"_Avada Kedavra." _Harry bit out the spell and a sickly green spell covered the short distance smacking into the Death Eater who had shot the man.

"Go" Harry said as he helped the vicar to steady himself, despite the pain he seemed able to run. "I'll stay safe." Harry said though he was relatively sure he was lying about that part even as he said it.

Looking around he saw the man fending off an increasing amount of Death Eaters, Harry rushed over firing off his shotgun a few more times before returning to his wand; stunning a few more. It was only then that he noticed the man was speaking into a radio, or something.

"Did you help the villagers to safety?" The man with the moustache asked.

"The church." Harry nodded behind them,

"Good lad, Lethbridge-Stewart by the way." The man said.

"Harry. _Avada Kedavra_." Harry said no longer needing to grit his teeth to cast the spell. It was still odd, using the curse, especially as he introduced himself "Are you a wizard?" He asked as they moved closer to one another if only to concentrate their targeting and fire, but they were needing to back away from the wizards around them. It was nice to know the man's name, especially as it appeared they would die together. Unless he was a wizard and then he could get away.

"Not exactly." The man said as they continued to back away, until they found themselves backed against the lamp post in the middle of the village green.

"It's Harry Potter!" Someone shouted.

"And some muggle." Another Death Eater said.

The Death Eaters were muttering and grinning around them, waving though not doing anything spell-like with their wands.

"Take this." The man, Lethbridge-Stewart put a stone that had something carved in it, a number Harry noticed into his hand.

"A portkey?" Harry muttered.

"Not exactly." The man said and then grabbed his radio. "Initiate teleport."

Then the village and everything evaporated away.

Harry looked around, he wasn't in the village any more, instead he found himself in a dull grey room, with people pointing guns at him.

"Out of one frying pan and into another fire. For someone I've just met this is exactly how my life is." Harry said, chuckling to himself. The people pointing guns at him didn't laugh, they looked serious and Harry realised he wasn't in a Death Eater induced torture related stupor, or in his imagination, which had been a little odd of late, though not this odd.

"Put us back down near Night Wolf, Commander."

Harry noted that the man, the Commander saluted to the man who was still standing next to him and who wasn't fazed by all the guns being pointed at them. Which they weren't they were all pointed at him.

Then the world evaporated again and he found himself standing on top of a short hill that lead down to what appeared to be a large moat.

Along with the moat, or what made it a moat was a castle.

Harry was somewhat confused, and said so to Lethbridge-Stewart.

"Let's go for a walk."

"Around the moat?" Harry asked nervously.

"If you like, the grounds around here are also very nice Mr Potter." Lethbridge-Stewart gestured a direction.

"I didn't say my last name." Harry paused.

"Those Death Eaters did." Lethbridge-Stewart replied.

"And you know about Death Eaters." Harry answered.

"I expect you have questions Mr Potter."

Harry nodded looking around and up to the sky, not that it would do any good to him, he had come across several books on divining your location from the stars, but he had no buggering idea on how to do it at the moment.

"You had a weapon, that looked like the killing curse, and you weren't surprised I had a wand."

"I was more surprised to see a magic user utilising a regular weapon Mr Potter."

"Something I'm playing around with." Was Harry's only answer while he formulated a question. "What was that, if not a port key, how did we get there and where was there and where is here?" Harry suddenly said.

"Do you know what U.N.I.T. is?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked.

Harry shook his head.

"United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. We deal with the unexplained, the odd, at any location no mater how far it takes us." He paused. "Alien invasions, virus outbreaks, evil from the dawn of time and megalomaniacal idiots and time travellers who think they're up above the gods." He said the last with something of a bittersweet edge.

_Alien invasions? _Harry thought to himself as Lethbridge-Stewart continued.

"I was in charge of UNIT in the United Kingdom for some time until they began to scale back, and then I became involved in something quite different." He looked to Harry who was still caught in thought.

"I'm telling you all this because we know about Voldemort."

Harry snapped his head around to look at the older man. "So I don't need to explain my life story then?" He said with a nervous laugh. This would be a weird way to get information out of him. But then Barty Crouch Junior masqueraded as Moody for weird reasons so why not? "Does my reputation precede me?" He asked again with a nervous laugh.

"No." Lethbridge-Stewart said in a short tone. "We know about Voldemort, including his reputation. I didn't know what you looked like, so when I saw you in the pub I never recognised you. Aside from recognising that you saw the weapon I had, and that you were watching me throughout my time in there."

Harry smiled awkwardly.

"That is a good thing Mr Potter." He removed a piece of paper and checked his watch before writing something onto the paper. "As to your previous question." He removed something from his pocket that looked like a pocket telescope with a few more bits added, it was sort of like omnioculars except smaller and sleeker.

"Read this and look through" He and gestured a line of sight. "up there."

"The RSCS _Firefox_ will be at…" Harry started as he realised what he was reading. As he peered through the telescope it was like he was looking at something just a few feet from him. It was huge, a long vaguely oblong thing travelling through space, it swam into view and then as it travelled out of view it disappeared.

"Fidelius charm." He said as he handed back the telescope and the piece of paper.

"That's where you were for a brief moment, and this is where we are." He gestured at the castle that they'd been walking around and the point that they'd gotten to was a draw bridge which had lowered, silently Harry added mentally to himself, while they'd been walking around.

"A castle?" Harry asked.

"UNIT Night Wolf's research and development base, as top secret as what you just saw through my telescope. It is a hub of training, development and creativity."

"Why am I here?" Harry asked as they approached the draw bridge.

"I'll let the Birmingham answer that questions. Suffice it to say I know enough about your 'world' to worry about Voldemort, and you. Would it make you feel any better if I told you Birmingham has worked in the Department of Mysteries?"

Harry must have made a noise of the affirmative, because Lethbridge-Stewart smiled a warm smile and gestured they go in.

-/

_A/N:_

_Events from this chapter remain more or less the same from the original story. I would note this isn't how I'd write this chapter now. But it is in-keeping with how I wrote it when I wrote it. It's just written better. If that makes sense. _

_The goal with this rewrite was to preserve the story and in part the style of how I wrote it. This is one of those parts. The infodump that the Brigadier does is necessary but not really how I'd play it if I were writing this anew. _


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 07

Harry awakened with a start and wasn't sure for a moment where he was, and then, and then it came rushing back.

The attack on the Death Eaters, the man who'd rescued him, UNIT, Night Wolf and everything.

Then what turned out to be a lot of paper work that dragged well into the night, it was something of an anti-climax. Not that he was complaining, torture versus paperwork the latter would always win.

He was now, according to paper work designated a 'Sorcerer', and if he went to the press or divulged anything he'd learnt or would learn with these people he'd be tried for Treason. Treason with a capital T.

He'd also found out more about this place and these people that he'd suddenly found himself with.

_Late the night before…._

"UNIT doesn't just defend from alien and other incursions, we also picked up a lot of technology, equipment and know how along the way, including some interesting artefacts. Artefacts that could led us to explore a little more than we could previously. It let us build ships; like the one you saw earlier. But that's not all Mr Potter, there are dangers that became apparent to us."

"Like magic?" Harry interjected.

Lethbridge-Stewart, whom Harry had discovered was a _General_ shook his head. "Not people exactly, people who can get above the average power and can muster above and beyond of their personality. UNIT's Sorcery Division was set up in the late 1980s during Voldemort's last reign. Some of the higher ups were unsure of it after that debacle with the Paranormal Division…" Lethbridge-Stewart trailed off for a moment, "but it was started we had a lot of help setting it up, but since then we've been growing. This facility is the largest in the Sorcery Division." Lethbridge-Stewart said.

Harry frowned in thought, he'd never heard of any wizards or witches doing anything except going into the Ministry or things like that.

"Help from whom?"

Lethbridge-Stewart, the General looked across the table at him. "Who does your wizarding society exclude? I'm sure you've been a part of it long enough now Mr Potter to see its inequalities."

Harry wasn't so sure if he _was_ part of the society of wizarding. He drifted in and out of it when school was on and then returned to the Dursleys, back to the muggle world.

But he had a think regardless of these thoughts.

If you were a pure blood then muggle borns weren't exactly the best of people to associate with. But then there were squibs which seemed to be a joke to wizards, and there was also werewolves. Remus had mentioned that he always found it hard getting a job.

"Squibs and werewolves." He answered after probably too long of silence.

"Exactly Mr Potter. UNIT has no issues with anything like that. We've given hundreds of people jobs and hundreds more assistance after they've been persecuted by the magical society. Birmingham was one of the first. He left the Department of Mysteries. I think this will all make sense in the morning."

_Present_.

Then the General had shown him to a room where he could sleep and shower and whatever.

There was even a window and a door that wasn't locked.

Once he was showered and dressed anew a man, a soldier led him to another room where the General was waiting with breakfast.

"One thing I didn't ask last night General" Harry paused to pour some tea into his mug. "Why bring me here? You could have just made me sign the Official Secrets Act and sent me on my way." Harry asked as he cradled the mug in his hands.

"Do you know how many regular army soldiers don't make it through training or bow out after a month with UNIT?" The General asked. Harry shook his head. "85 percent. You handled yourself admirably last night Mr Potter and I think we can help you now and whatever the future may bring."

"Now?" Harry asked.

"With Voldemort."

The door was unassuming, on the side of the door had a number and a single name below it. 'Birmingham'.

As they walked through the door a well built tall man walked up to them. He had cool, though somewhat sad eyes when he looked at Harry, despite this he had a steely disposition and carried himself strongly.

"Harry James Potter." He took Harry's hand shaking it firmly, and Harry had to note he had a strong grip. A very strong grip in fact. Harry tried not to show it had any effect on him.

"I did not think the Brigadier would run into you." He said in a surprised tone.

"Brigadier?" Harry turned to the General.

"A rank I held for some time, Birmingham thinks it amusing to call me by it." He said looking with a glare to Birmingham who chuckled.

"I know with the scar I'm recognisable, but you sound like you know me." Harry said watching Birmingham.

Birmingham smiled sadly. "There is a prophecy."

"Found out about that one." Harry said with a sigh.

Birmingham nodded, still seemingly angry and sad. "Then that is a relief that you have come into the knowledge."

"I don't think Dumbledore wanted me to know about it." Harry said with some anger. "Why is it a relief?"

"I was the one who set it onto the shelf, and heard it as I did so and attempted to follow the instructions." Birmingham replied with some weight.

"Instructions?" Harry asked. Dumbledore hadn't said anything about that. But it seemed Dumbledore wasn't the trusty old man he'd once thought of him as.

"When a prophecy is made, some instructions must be followed, if the person can be identified, even if there is a possibility of the person being the one in the prophecy they must be informed to prepare for their foretold fate, even if it turns out to be erroneous." Birmingham said, no Harry thought to himself, Birmingham intoned, it was as though he were reciting something committed to memory, though in a way unlike how Hermione sometimes said things.

"And I wasn't informed." Harry said, _if_ he'd known, despite what Dumbledore had said about him having a 'normal' life he'd have prepared and maybe then Cedric, Sirius and many others wouldn't have died or been injured with him around.

"I attempted to, but someone who claimed to be your magical protector intervened." He paused and looked him in the eye. "It was Dumbledore. These instructions are from before Merlin and he broke them as though they were nothing." Birmingham said with restrained anger.

"I tried to release the information to you and your guardians after Dumbledore intercepted me. But the Ministry was informed of me being a werewolf. They bound my memories and knowledge relating to the prophecy."

"No doubt on the orders of the Supreme Mugwump." Harry said to himself, again wondering what could have happened had he known what was to come. "Bound?" he asked.

"Unlike oblivating, bound memories are held within a person, but can only be discussed with the persons to whom the prophecy was about. It is ancient magic. I know the full details of the prophecy. As you do." He looked to the Brigadier. "With you and I in the room discussing it the Brigadier now knows more than I have been able to inform to him."

"I've only known since last year. I destroyed it myself. Some people died." Harry said in short bursts.

"He said" Birmingham roared. "That he would tell you when you arrived at Hogwarts."

"It seems the old fart didn't say exactly when." Harry muttered.

"Then this makes mine and the Brigadier's offer all the more relevant."

"Which is?"

"To train and prepare you, to help you defeat Voldemort." Birmingham said.

"And to have a future." The Brigadier finished.

-/

"So that's it." Birmingham had wanted to know what his time at Hogwarts had been like. Where Harry had got the scars in his hands, Birmingham had 'sensed' something when he'd shaken his hand. So Harry had told the two men everything from before he'd started until now.

"You've done more, gone through more than most UNIT officers have." The General said.

"And now, we should begin." Birmingham said rising from his chair.

They began with a tour, there was an Apothecary Division dealing in all potions and everything besides, there were grounds outside of the castle and moat where plants were grown for various researches and other things. It seemed the castle sat on significant grounds, which were surrounded by something army related. It could have been in the middle of a firing range for all Harry knew. It wasn't as though he'd arrived here by any regular means.

"Why aren't these things in greenhouses?" Harry asked BIrmingham. They were standing in an area some ways from the castle.

"We have those, but this is the Grove, it's a careful balance of a variety of plants we've found it a place to assist in larger plants growing, a form of harmony between them forms."

"I feel…" Harry wasn't sure what he felt, but he felt like he could feel the plants growing, now that he could see the sky he felt much better, and different, like the plants were buzzing or fizzing.

"I feel lighter out here, like there's a vibration through here, around here." Harry said in a somewhat breathless state.

Birmingham was watching him curiously. "I think a trip to the library, I'd like you to see what calls to you."

Harry looked at him curiously.

The library was arranged in long shelves and appeared cover more than one floor of the castle.

Harry looked to Birmingham who just gestured to have a look around.

Harry found himself standing in front of a shelf with a book in his hand before he knew it. "How…?"

"A mild form of suggestion, you seemed to be looking for something, I just gave you a subtle push." He explained, Harry wasn't sure what to think as he looked down at the book. It was about animagi.

Harry just looked to Birmingham quizzically.

"Tomorrow."

-/

Harry was sitting in the large area where all the meals were had by all the many people that were at Night Wolf. The animagus book he'd found tucked into a pocket, he'd been reading through it the night before and fell asleep with it in his hands.

"Your schedule Harry." Harry took it sighing as Birmingham sat down with a mug of coffee.

"Why the sigh?" He asked curiously.

"It's just like school. Except for the manipulative Headmaster. And the supposedly reformed Death Eater 'Potions Master', and the possibility of walking into the re-incarnate form of Voldemort…maybe it isn't like school. You said something about animagi."

"No you did yesterday. That can be explored in your own time. I wouldn't be of much help in the Animagus department." Birmingham explained that he'd be getting instruction from the various divisions that were within Night Wolf.

"Birmingham, how come you can't help in the animagus umm 'department'?" Harry asked as he spread jam onto his toast.

"Because I'm a werewolf. I hope that doesn't make you uncomfortable?"

"Why would it?" Harry asked. "My godfather's best friend is one and my he's my protector too, I trust him with my life." Harry asked and then realised something "If you don't mind me asking, the full moon was only a few days ago, Remus is usually looking like shit after his transformation." Harry looked deep into Birmingham's eyes.

"Remus…Remus Lupin? He taught at Hogwarts a few years ago." Harry nodded. "He's using the Wolfsbane potion?" Birmingham asked.

"Yeah. I thought that was a good thing?" Harry looked at Birmingham quizzically.

"Oh it is, if you don't know better." Birmingham sipped his coffee.

"How so?" Harry asked as a plate arrived with a very full English breakfast and Birmingham pushed it to Harry.

"Eat up, you've got a long day ahead of you." Birmingham said as he pushed the plate over.

"Wolfsbane is a fantastic potion but there are side effects." Birmingham began.

"Like Remus feeling like crap after the full moon." Harry asked.

Birmingham nodded. "Yes but, he also feels bad leading up to the full moon, correct?" Harry nodded as he tucked into his breakfast.

"So if he hasn't taken the Wolfsbane why should he feel bad?" Birmingham asked.

"The Wolf?" Harry asked unsure of his answer.

"Partly. Lycanthropy is not just a wolf that comes out on the full moon. The wolf is a part of you. Anyone who is afflicted and ignores the wolf pretends that it isn't a part of you. But if you embrace the wolf, it becomes a part of you, like an animagus. Through meditation, through actually communing with the wolf inside you understand it and it becomes a part of you. You can turn into the wolf like an animagus, the full moon comes to be just another night. You won't change if you don't want to, but you experience an even more heightened sensory perception for those nights."

"So why hasn't anyone-" Harry asked but was cut off by Birmingham.

"Done anything about this before. Because the wizarding world discards what it fears, ostracises them. Werewolves, Squibs, people with a low magical potential. Even magical beings."

"So if the wolf is a part of you, what does the Wolfsbane do?"

"The Wolfsbane is interesting, it was adapted from a animagus suppressing potion. Drink the Wolf's Bane and you can't transform into your form. But the wolf inside us is something more. Each time you take the Wolfsbane you're poisoning the wolf, feeding it something to suppress it, you get your mind, but at a terrible cost. That's why your friend feels so bad, he's literally poisoning himself in careful doses each time."

Harry shuddered.

"I know how you feel, that's how I felt when I discovered this." Birmingham took another sip of his drink. "Many of the wizards here are what would be _classified_ as werewolves were they in the presence of a ministry official, or anyone in the wizarding world. Though a lot of people who are werewolves or become one move away from the UK."

"Why?" Harry asked. Aside from the Tri-Wizard Tournament there wasn't much he knew about wizarding culture outside of England.

"Because the Ministry for Magic UK is one of the oldest and most corrupt ministry in the world, they're also not exactly equal opportunity friendly as your friend discovered. So a lot have come to UNIT a lot here at Night Wolf or other facilities or training centres. Many move to Australia, Canada and the US where they're accepted for who they are, most almost all don't care there. Not like here."

Harry was left in deep thought on that notion.

-/

It happened on his third day of training, where he was duelling one of the wizards to show them what he knew, he'd been hit with a few different spells.

And then wings came out of his back.

Wings.

**Wings!**

Harry would passed out or something, had he not been reading a book on animagus, which had warned that some elements of the animagus form might manifest prior to the discovering of the form. Like he supposed Sirius' scruffiness or Pettigrew's buck teeth.

At some point he realised Birmingham was in the room, he hand a wand out, and a raised eyebrow. "Interesting. Let's go and see a Sorcerer Naturalist." He said gesturing Harry to follow him.

"My shirt's all ripped." Harry moaned and then chuckled as he walked. "I'm not going to be stuck like this am I?"

"Very probably not, though they are nice wings." Birmingham said helpfully.

-/

"Interesting." Said Hollingworth or Liz, as Birmingham addressed her.

"Big black wings that go down to my calves, interesting is one word." Harry muttered.

She walked over with a magnifying glass and a camera. "I should be able to identify them and what your animagus is." She took one of the feathers and pulled it.

Harry swore. "Hey, I'm not a chicken."

"Sorry, just trying to get a sample." She said as she went over to a computer terminal.

"No books?" Harry asked curiously.

She shook her head. "The big useful texts have been digitised, they're the ones we use for research reguarly." She explained. "Can't have people leafing through books that are hundreds of years old when doing research. The frequently used ones are in the library." She paused as the images uploaded. "Have you tried flapping them?"

Harry didn't even know how to manipulate them. But they didn't feel like a dead weight on his back so there was that.

"Try thinking of something near your shoulder blades or something." Birmingham offered. Harry had forgotten he was still here.

Harry adjusted himself from side to side and felt something in his back and managed to flap the wings gently, though nothing happened.

"I am still bound by the laws of gravity then." Harry said.

"Interesting." Liz said as she scrolled through information. "Interesting." She said again.

Harry made a face at her.

"You are an Everlasting Raven, it's a rare variation on the animagus form, it's something that probably is part of your family, though not for several, probably hundreds of generations."

"Everlasting?" Harry asked.

Liz shrugged. "Symbolic, you will be able to manifest certain additional abilities outside of a regular animagus form. There's not much more information here, you'll need to library's rare books to look through to find more."

"Yay. Research." Harry dead panned.

-/

Everlasting Ravens were creatures that was probably part of ever single magical society, culture etc. They were a symbol of power. They could move in the shadow, become the shadow. They were creatures of the night, but also existed as a contrast to the day.

They were intrinsically connected to the air, the wind and the dark. They could go anywhere any one of these things existed, by simple riding, 'travelling' or shifting through the air, which Harry took to mean something like teleporting.

As for the abilities Liz had mentioned outside of a regular animagus there were only a few references.

He inherited the Everlasting Raven's abilities, the ability to travel wherever he wanted, without apparition. The sparse information indicated it was about will, rather than concentration as apparition was.

The manifestation of the wings was a connection to the heritage of the Everlasting Raven in his family, aside from being able to wrap the wings around himself, they were also a useful 'balance' to the animagus form. Whatever that meant.

Later in one of the books it said that having the wings manifested outside of the body would mean for a more stable personality and life, which having an Everlasting Raven about oneself meant you were more prone- and then the book just sort of trailed off, like the writer had gotten distracted.

It was frustrating, none of the books said how to get rid of the wings.

Just 'they are a part of oneself and can be de-manifested at will'.

"So I just concentrate and…" Harry said to himself and…nothing happened.

Another said he had to commune with the idea of the Everlasting Raven in order to control it.

Much, much later that night with a jacket from Night Wolf with holes ripped in it and pulled around the wings he found himself in the Grove. Trying to relax.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to think of somewhere he felt relaxed. He felt a rushing sensation and then he opened his eyes and he was standing in front of that abandoned house. Harry looked around and there was the burnt out car.

Looking back he found he still had the wings.

Sighing he walked forward, unlocking the door he'd repaired and went inside.

Lying in the bath, he allowed himself to drift off sleep, and then nearly drowned.

But as he was spluttering and choking he realised the wings had gone.

"Maybe it's just a bath to get rid of them." He said as he dried himself down.

Then he walked back outside locking the door and looked around him.

"Now…" Harry said to himself and exhaled, he kept his eyes open this time and felt a brush of air around him and then he was back, having returned with almost no effort to the Grove.

-/

_A/N:_

_Once more this chapter mostly contains what was originally in the story. _

_I had something of an obsession with wings and stuff like that when I wrote the original and it made its way into this story (and also an unpublished X-Men/Harry Potter crossover). _

_There are less characters in this version, by this point in the old story there were dozen or so new characters in the story. I can only just remember what all the characters did. _

_Much of the dialogue is from the original version of the story, though I've also added extra bits and pieces._


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Harry was in the middle of his 5 week schedule that the General and Birmingham had prepared for him to cram in everything they though he should know.

But at this mid-point Harry realised the OWLs would have been sent, likely to Remus given his status as his protector, and it was upon realising this that Harry went to the General to make a request.

"Harry." The Brigadier said. Harry had, like Birmingham started to call Lethbridge-Stewart 'the Brigadier'.

"I'd like to make a request Brigadier." Harry said. He could have popped away and come back, but considering how much these people had helped and the nature of everything here being secret he thought it was best to ask before he left.

"I'd like to go and see Remus, for my OWLs and change my subjects, and give him a copy of Birmingham's book."

The Brigadier nodded. "I understood he's still proofing it."

Harry nodded. "He is, but he's given me a copy for Remus all the same."

"You understand the bounds of the Official Secrets Act Harry." The Brigadier said in a stern tone.

"Yes." Harry said with a nod.

"And what subjects are you changing?"

"Drop Divination, pick up Arithmancy, and then just have Charms, Defence, Transfiguration and Potions."

"Just five?" The Brigadier asked curiously.

"Well" Harry paused and smiled. "I was hoping to pop back here to brush up."

The Brigadier chuckled. "I am sure something can be arranged. I take this to mean you are considering your future beyond your defeat of Voldemort?"

Harry nodded. "I'm still a little unsure of everything. But you've given me confidence that I can beat him."

-/

The next day Harry stood out in the grove. He could have shifted through the air from his room inside the castle but out here he could feel the fizzing of the magical plants, some how that helped him. He relaxed and allowed himself to shift through the air and from where he was to the kitchen in Grimmauld Place.

Remus was sitting reading the paper. "Remus." Harry said in a soft voice.

Remus jumped and almost fell out of his chair.

"Harry?" He croaked and then rushed over and gave him a hug.

Harry was taken aback somewhat by Remus' impassioned response but quickly responded.

"I didn't think you'd make such a quiet appearance." He said stepping back. "After your disappearance from the Dursley's."

"And the removal of Dumbledore's many tracking charms?" Harry asked as he took a seat at the table opposite Remus.

Remus smiled gently. "I knew you would need time, and space…after and the other things." Remus looked at Harry carefully. "Dumbledore has been greatly annoyed."

"I'm not sure how much I trust him Remus." Harry admitted.

"A feeling we all have at the moment." Remus said.

"We?" Harry asked.

"Moody and Tonks, we're the outsiders in the Order, regarding Dumbledore and you." Remus said.

Harry wasn't sure what to say to this, so instead he asked Remus if he had his OWL results.

"I haven't opened it, though I'm sure Dumbledore knows." Remus handed Harry the envelope.

"What doesn't he know, or pretend it's in everyone's best interest to know?" Harry asked. "Outstanding in everything except Divination." He said as he fingered the parchment, it had a slightly oily texture to it reminding him of something.

Harry put the feeling aside for the moment.

"Could you arrange for me to change subjects Remus?"

"Of course Harry but what for?" He asked.

"You don't think I want to do Divination, a prophecy about me is enough."

Remus chuckled. "Yes, I think so, quite enough." He looked to Harry again. "I wish I could have done something about that, known something, told you."

Harry nodded sadly. "Yes, but it's in the past. Could I change so my subjects are Charms, Defence, Potions, Transfiguration and Arithmancy."

Remus raised an eyebrow at the choices but didn't say anything.

The noise started throughout the house, Remus looked around quickly.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"Proximity spell, someone's attempting to gain access to the house. Moody changed the process of entry so unwanted people couldn't come in."

The people who couldn't come in wasn't said, but the explosion of the door outside the kitchen and the voice indicated who it was.

"Dumbledore." Harry said with a sigh. Removing Birmingham's 'embracing your inner wolf' manuscript from his pocket and thrust it into Remus' hands. "Here, something I got from a friend. I think it can be an alternative to the Wolfsbane potion."

"How…?" Remus withdrew his wand locking the doors to the kitchen as Dumbledore shouted out Harry's name.

"Trust me Remus. I'll be back closer to school time." Harry said and stepped backwards into the shadows.

Just as he did so the doors to the kitchen disintegrated and Dumbledore walked in.

"What do I owe _this_ appearance in my residence Dumbledore?" Remus asked in an annoyed tone.

"Where is Harry Remus?"

Remus stared at Dumbledore for a moment unconcerned that the old man could read his thoughts, a werewolf's mind was notoriously hard to see into.

Remus looked around and down at the OWL results, which Dumbledore had looked to briefly. Lifting the parchment he rubbed it between his fingers before smelling it.

"Is Harry's return really worth placing borderline illegal tracking modifiers onto the parchment. An official OWL results parchment at that Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore regarded him carefully. "Harry is vitally important to our survival in the war Remus, it is vital that I know precisely where he is and to keep him safe."

"Please leave Dumbledore before I must call the Aurors." Remus said in a calm tone.

"Too late. They're already here." Said Moody's voice. "Breaking and entering and use of a controlled substance as a tracking spell modifier."

"In the words of great detectives, you're nicked." Tonks grinned at Remus from behind Dumbledore.

Ropes shot out of Moody's wand towards Dumbledore but he simply shrugged them off.

"I would like to make a request of you Remus, to hold a full Order meeting here, as many of our operatives would not know of the change in circumstances…" Dumbledore said calmly appealing to Remus.

Remus looked to Moody and Tonks who shrugged. Since they'd barred Dumbledore from the house a few of the Order members had turned up looking for Dumbledore, and while they took issue with Dumbledore the didn't want to bring danger on the rest of the Order.

Remus gestured to a seat at the table to Dumbledore. "I'll consider it, if you answer some questions."

Dumbledore sat down opposite him.

"Why did Harry not receive Sirius' will? Only since I became aware that I was his protector have I become aware Sirius even made one."

"Remus I hardly need to explain the insecurity of owl post at this time." Dumbledore explained in a tone he used for troublesome students.

"That's not an answer, and according to Phineas's sources the owl reached his house." Remus challenged, not that Phineas had indicated anything of the sort, he'd barely spoken to the portrait.

"It did and Harry did not receive the letter." Dumbledore said with much confidence. "I was protecting him, Harry would have gone straight to Gringotts, it wasn't safe, given the events of the Department of Mysteries. He is viewed as a viable target for many Death Eaters, he is vital to m…our war."

"A war that you decided not to make Harry aware of until Harry came face to face with the prophecy?" Remus watched the older man.

"It was necessary to keep Harry from knowing, he needed to be-" Dumbledore was cut off.

"Vulnerable?" Moody asked.

"You can have your meeting, 5 days before school begins. Now leave" Remus looked up as Dumbledore rose from the chair. "Or I will press charges and these two lovely Aurors can take you away in chains." Remus said in a dismissive tone.

-/

It was nearing the end of his fifth week when the Brigadier found him out in the Grove.

"Birmingham tells me you've been having second thoughts." He said sitting down on the bench beside Harry.

Harry shrugged looking up at the sky. "No, just…I'm not sure what's done here, what I could do you help and…it seems a bit overwhelming at times."

"Says the man who fought off several Death Eaters to save a town with nothing more than a shrug." The Brigadier chuckled.

Harry smiled slightly. "I've just been thinking, 'neither can live while the other survives'."

"Defeatist thinking Harry." The Brigadier slapped him on the back. "I've come to make you an offer, to see how big this world of ours really is."

Harry looked at the Brigadier curiously.

-/

Space, it was said, was big, really big, you wouldn't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it was. It seemed like a long way rambling around the UK, but that's just peanuts to space. Now looking at the Earth and seeing how small it was, and how big space was...it was more than mindboggling it was...

Harry wasn't sure, he'd been staring at the Earth for some time now. He was in one of the few areas on RSCS _Victory _that had windows Harry stared out into space as the ship prepared to make the travel across the skin of hypersapce. Using something called a window.

It was all somewhat over his head, but the way the captain of the ship had explained it their ships were made up of a collection of alien technologies, some that might be from other universes as well as other cultures, civilisations and planets. So when UNIT had built their ships they'd incorporated several types of technology because some things were better than others in different situations.

They even had two forms of matter transmission, one that relied on co-ordinates and one that relied on the stones that the Brigadier and he had used.

The faster-than-light, which wasn't technically (supposedly real FTL was something different altogether), but the technology they used was either one that 'skimmed the edges' of hyperspace, and one where they travelled through the middle of it.

The latter needed points to navigate by, like navigation buoys, of which only a few had been built, but travelling through hyperspace was more efficient for the ships.

Harry had just taken all this information in, even if he didn't fully understood it, he hoped he would soon. Hoped that he would have a future in which he could use it.

Then, after an indeterminate amount of time he was standing in one of the matter transmission rooms waiting to go down to the planet.

The planet didn't even have a name, just a designation. Which wasn't very interesting.

Supposedly naming then planet meant several meetings needed to take place in the UN and because only two countries the UK and Australia had spaceships capable of reaching the planets. So it meant a whole other discussion had to take place or something and…it just seemed like something that everyone acknowledged but there were more important things to do than coming up with a name for a planet.

Then there was a whirr of whatever took apart your body and reassembled it and he found himself standing on an alien planet.

A planet with a star that wasn't the Sun, a planet with 2 moons and…Harry couldn't find the words to describe it.

There were forests of things that looked like trees, and on closer inspection they were trees, just not anything he recognised.

There were plants, there was dirt and there were several metal cabins set up everywhere that had a look of distinct practicality about them.

This was 'Research Outpost 5', and it was the closest thing this planet had to a name, which wasn't the name of the planet but the site where the buildings were, technically speaking.

It had taken him a day just to get over his speechlessness, the night however had brought it back once more. It was more than beautiful it was almost indescribable. To look up at an alien sky, with stars most of which he couldn't see from home, from Earth.

He only had 3 days here, and then the _Victory_ would be back after its shakedown cruise to pick him up and return him to Earth.

"How quickly I come to consider terms like that normal." Harry said to himself.

He wondered briefly, if he could just stay here, away from Earth and Dumbledore and Voldemort, away from all that stuff he could just run away from Earth, never go back.

But then, but then he knew that Voldemort was not just his problem. Birmingham had told him a little of what Voldemort did in the first war, and what could happen in this one. Worse than the things he had seen in Tellus, worse than things he'd seen and what had happened to Cedric.

That was why he needed to go back and end things.

It was only, days later, sitting out in the Grove once more that he could actually reflect on how amazing what he'd just done. He'd set foot on another planet.

Another planet. That was…he didn't have the vocabulary for it.

He was going to fight Voldemort, Dumbledore and whomever else and then, then he was going to live into the future. Or die trying.

-/

_A/N:_

_Most of the Order dialogue remains unchanged from the original version._

_The most notable thing missing from the story at this point is the Shadow Blaze, the fighter craft that Harry flew in the original version of the story. _

_I've gotten rid of it because it was just __**too powerful**__, and Harry talked to far too many things in the original version (snakes, birds, the Shadow Blaze and himself). Even in the original story I wrote it out at the end because of this. People and things that are too powerful make it hard to write stories around._

_This time Harry going to another planet is about the Brigadier showing him what's possible, what he could do after Voldemort, rather than the odd mix of messing around with the Shadow Blaze and some other stuff. With these changes I feel it's a more real process between Birmingham, the Brigadier and Harry. It's also just a better process for Harry to work out what he wants for the future. _

_In the old version Harry was very positive about everything and sort of went from positive to positive. He could fly the Shadow Blaze (with its help) with no issues and then he came up with his various ideas easily. Some doubt and determination in him works better for his developing character_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 09

Harry departed Night Wolf a little under a week before school started. He'd received a gigantic amount of training and information from them and received assurances that he could return during his holidays. There was after all still Voldemort to deal with, and it wasn't just the prophecy that was the reason he had to deal with. UNIT was concerned about all the other effects that he wrought. On the regular world, as he had the last time and this time; resurrected he was all the more dangerous. The Brigadier had mentioned something about a 'final event scenario' which they didn't want to end up with. Whatever it was it had made Birmingham and the other people at Night Wolf look _very_ worried. But no one would explain what a 'final event' was. But whatever it was it seemed drastic.

Drifting out of the shadows that seemed to be everywhere at Grimmauld Place Harry found himself in what appeared to be an argument mostly centred around where he was and why Remus was being obtuse about it.

"All this shouting for me." Harry said through the doors from the hall outside the kitchen where the meeting was going on.

A lot of people drew their wands as they turned around to look at him. He waved at them.

Dumbledore beamed at him, his eyes twinkling so much it was like he was possessed or something. Dumbledore was the first to replace his wand, where ever it was that he kept it. And then Harry felt Dumbledore pounce, mentally. Harry felt it like tendrils weaving their way into his mind and then coming up against a steel door covered in spikes.

By Dumbledore's expression he was more than a little bit taken aback. "Don't make me shoot you." Harry said in a cool voice staring at Dumbledore.

"Harry!" Molly cried. "What would you do that for?"

"They know." Harry waved his wand at Snape and Dumbledore.

"Like all menaces Potter, you need eradicating." Snape snarled at him, he like many of the order had not put his wand away.

"Once-" Dumbledore started.

"Once I've done my part then I can be fed to the fishes." Harry finished. "And how is Voldemort, I do believe he's down several Death Eaters."

Snape's eyes went wide. "That was you?" He hissed, seemingly more angry than he should be considering how much he supposedly didn't like them, or that was what _Dumbledore_ implied most of the time.

"Well, there appears to be an Order meeting, let's see what that's all about." Harry said after a moment's silence.

When they were all seated Dumbledore began "Mr Potter, I would like to ask…where have you been all this time? Your safety, in this war is my only concern." He smiled as he finished.

"You know Dumbledore, I could answer that question, I really could." Harry got up and started to pace up and down the room, stopping at Dumbledore.

"But first let me ask you some questions."

Dumbledore indicated with a gesture of his hand.

Harry was about to start when he gazed around the table, many faces he'd never seen before, and while he was okay with airing his and Dumbledore's dirty washing to those that might have something to put in, others didn't need to know. He cared about them in a living and breathing sense but not in a 'gossip about Harry's life' sense.

"Anyone who's not met me before I think should leave." Harry said in a calm voice. No one made a move. Harry gestured with his hand at the doors, wind seemed to whistle around the room blasting the doors open. "Leave." Harry said once more in a cool voice.

A lot of people left leaving Remus, Moody, Tonks, the twins, Molly and Arthur, Hestia Jones, Snape, Diggle, and Kingsley Shaklebolt, Ron and Hermione also stayed Harry wasn't sure if they were Order members or what was happening with them. The room had more than halved in size.

"Your questions Harry?" Dumbledore asked carefully in a sombre tone.

"Where should I start? How about intercepting my official letter from Gringotts, an offence under Wizagamont legislation… Or what about all those tracking charms. Or how about telling Snape not to teach me Occlumacy, so as to leave me open to the eyes of Voldemort? How about that to start with?" Harry paused to take a breath "Or how about my parent's will?"

Dumbledore looked sick, the others looked with concern and anger between him and Dumbledore.

"I'm sure Harry it was for the best…" Molly muttered.

"Mrs Weasley…" Harry tried to think of something to say but just trailed off before he swore at her.

"Where did you go, why didn't you come to the Burrow, we could have…" She started.

"With all respect Mrs Weasley the Burrow wasn't what I wanted or needed."

She looked up with tears pooling in her eyes. Harry wondered what she'd do if he told her he'd lived in a ruin for a while and then gone and shot some Death Eaters. And thoroughly enjoyed it. The living in the ruin part.

"I needed freedom, to think and to do. I think I've come out rather good." Harry said positively smiling at everyone.

"Dumbledore you're rather quiet. Answer Mr Potter's questions." Moody growled. Dumbledore looked up worried. "Harry I…"

"Let me fill in the gaps. You intercepted not one but two letters from Gringotts. Those tracking charms, I hope you had a nice journey around the world. Then cracking my head open ready for killer visions from Voldemort. There is one more gap. I've had a talk to a few people and one of the main motivations for keeping me at my relatives was…well to break me down keep me subservient. Nice little Gryffindor for you to prod in the right direction. You know I'd lay a sizeable bet that my parents didn't even mention Petunia in the will only to say I shouldn't be put there." Harry asked, this last bit he'd mused on for some time and talked to Birmingham at length about. "If I ever get a hold of my parent's will."

"Harry…I." Dumbledore began.

"Only did it for the war?" Harry took Dumbledore's silence as an affirmative.

Harry exhaled.

"I think that means the meeting's ended." Said Tonks quietly.

"Dumbledore. Come up with some answers, satisfactory ones and I won't kill you. Or if that proves too…messy I'll just make your life…problematic. I will be at Hogwarts, I shall finish my education you need not worry about that." Harry said as Dumbledore rose from the table and departed with Snape.

"Ron could you go with your mum. Hermione I could take you home if you wish."

"Harry mate we want to stay." Ron whined, looking annoyed at his mother.

"Harry…" Hermione caught Harry's look.

"I think I understand." She whispered.

"Harry, where have you been please tell us." Ron pleaded.

"All in good time Ron. How about we meet you at Diagon Alley in two days, then you can come back here for two days before we return to Hogwarts." Harry said as Ron's face turned from pained to just annoyed.

"Fine. Hermione you coming?" Ron walked with his mum over to the floo.

"I think I'll take up Harry's offer." Ron looked at Harry and Hermione worriedly but didn't say anything.

"Hermione dear are you sure... But don't you…" Molly was hushed by her husband as the twins waited for them to leave.

"We've got a flat above the shop Harry, thanks." The twins said as the patted him on the back and disappeared with a pop.

"So Hermione, you're not going try and get any information out of me are you?" Harry asked.

"No Harry. You will tell us when you want to. I know that about you." She said. "So Harry how're you going to get me home?" She asked, the others seemed to be taking pains to not listen to them.

"Did you bring anything with you?"

Hermione nodded. "I'll just go and get my things." She said running out of the room.

"How did you just appear here, Dumbledore had wards up and Moody was monitoring the house." Tonks asked curiously.

Harry grinned. "Magic of course." As Hermione returned. "So how are we going to-"

Harry cut Hermione off. "Just take my hand and-"

She cut him off. "You can't apparate," Hermione began panicked. "You don't have your licence, and the wards and-" And then before the remaining people they disappeared like wind.

-/

They reappeared outside Hermione's house.

Harry had practised taking people with him when he shifted between places, and there didn't seem to be any extra effort take one person and barely any extra effort with 2 or 4 people. At five there was some effort though. From what the people at Night Wolf had said as his experience grew there may not be a limit, theoretically speaking, but practically there was to how many people he shifted. Whatever that meant. Suppoedly it was hard to calculate an energy and sorcery will curve on his Everlasting Raven abilities because of the interaction of wind and the elemental darkness that he could shift through as they both imparted energy into the process.

"Harry, what…how…?" Hermione was looking around and almost shouted as she saw her house.

"Breathe." Harry said gently.

"How…Harry?"

"Like the others I'm not going to answer questions. There is maybe enough in what we just did to work it out. Actually probably not. I'll show you, but I want to tell everyone myself, no spoiling."

Hermione nodded as Harry walked her to the door and knocked.

"Don't you have a key?"

"I thought I was staying at Grimmauld Place."

A man and woman answered the door.

"Hermione I thought you were staying at…"

"Mum Dad, this is Harry."

"Mr Granger, Mrs Granger. I have to say Hermione is one of the truest and smartest people I know."

"Thank you, Hermione speaks very highly of you." Mrs Granger smiled.

"Hermione's back because I've just returned, wanted to spend some time with Remus, just us you know?"

"Of course." Mr Granger smiled.

"How did you get back here? I don't see a taxi and we didn't hear an what was it app…"

"Apparition. No. I brought Hermione another way. I'm sure she'll explain. Goodnight Mr Granger, Mrs Granger. Hermione I'll see you in two days, I'll even give you a lift." Harry said before stepping back out of the light and disappearing.

When Harry returned he found out from Remus that Kreacher was dead "Good riddance." Killed by Dumbledore and that Dobby and Winky were here helping out, which was why everything looked so clean in here.

The Remus, Tonks and Moody wanted to know where he'd been, what he'd been up to.

He told them everything up to UNIT, and simple said he couldn't say.

"That's only half of the story and you know it." Remus smiled at Harry.

"It's something I can't say." Harry said honestly.

"Why not?" Tonks asked.

"Things were signed."

"Blood rituals?" Moody looked at Harry again.

"I signed the Official Secrets Act, I'd be done for treason if I told you." Harry said honestly.

"The Official Secrets Act." Remus repeated as though he'd heard of it before.

"Something you've heard of Remus?" Moody asked.

"Something I've heard around, people, werewolves speaking of it." He explained.

"Very probably." Harry said vaguely.

-/

Later that week Harry arrived at Hermione's house.

"I've taken good care of her." She said as her parents showed him to her room.

"And sending lots of post?" Harry asked as Crookshanks leapt into his lap.

Hermione smiled at him. "Well it seemed a shame Harry to have access to an owl and not utilise her. There are so many magical periodicals out there that Hogwarts doesn't have and you have to send a letter to subscribe to them so I thought…" She trailed off. "Since Hedwig was here."

Harry chuckled. "It's good, that you've given her things to do Hermione." Harry gently removed Crookshanks from his lap.

"Now Hermione ready to go to Diagon Alley?" He asked offering her his hand.

She eyed him carefully. "Yes Harry Potter, but don't disappear, I need to tell my parents."

"That a strange teenager is whisking you off to places magical?" She stared at him.

"Yes, Harry. That's exactly it." Said Hermione seriously, though there was a smile playing at the edges of her lips.

-/

Diagon Alley was as it was always, no one tried to kill them while they were there and Harry failed at buying a bottle of Firewhiskey for himself.

Mostly because he was foiled by Mrs Weasley swooping in at the last moment. Berating him and the shop keeper who had been all too happy to sell a bottle to the young man who lived, as he'd said with a wink.

-/

The train ride was also much like last year.

Malfoy had made an appearance though, spouting the same old rubbish that he usually did.

"You never say anything original do you Malfoy?" Harry said from his position by the window in a calm voice. After facing Death Eaters, Malfoy wasn't exactly intimidating.

"What Potter?" Malfoy was thrown by him not reacting.

"Have you ever thought for yourself, or is it just what your father's Voldemorty musings forced upon you?" Harry continued, aware that Ron was watching him strangely. "Have you ever thought for yourself Malfoy or are you just another goon in waiting?" Harry said looking to Malfoy's own goons as he spoke.

Malfoy threw a few more insults mostly at Ron before leaving.

"What was that mate?" Ron asked looking at him strangely.

"A few reasoned questions to him." Harry replied to Ron's questions with a shrug.

-/

_Unite and triumph_

_Together battle evil_

_Or we shall all fall_

"Not much of a song." Ron muttered.

"It's a Haiku." Harry looked around at his friends.

"A what?" Ginny and Ron asked.

"It's a style of poetry, using 5 syllables, then 7 then 5." Hermione explained.

"At least it's straight forward." Harry mused aloud as he studied the array of foods in front of him.

"Do you think House Elves ever send out flawed meals?" He asked earning strange looks from everyone seated at the table as though he'd just said the sky was orange and the Earth was a rectangle sitting in a bath of milk on top of a turtle.

-/

Harry was standing outside Dumbledore's office pondering whether or not to go in. They had been back at school more than a week before the headmaster had sent summons for him to come to his office. It had come at least subtly, if subtly meant a ghost surprising while he was trying to take a piss.

"Harry, my boy please come in." Said Dumbledore voice from the other side.

Harry walked impassively into his office looking around, all the things he had smashed were fixed again. Harry wondered if it would serve anything more than his own satisfaction to smash them up once more. At the moment he wanted to spend as less time as he could with Dumbledore, and to think he had named an army after the man. It was now and fore ever would be the Defence Association in his mind. Dumbledore never needed an army because he had his own assassin, or kamikaze boy groomed since before he'd even attended Hogwarts.

"Harry… I thought we might talk." Harry stared at the man for a moment regarding him, pondering whether he should do anything, instead he remained silent for several moments, waiting for Dumbledore to make a move.

"Regarding?" Harry prompted still keeping a neutral expression, Dumbledore was equally as calm, which left Harry reading his body language as nil to slightly inquisitive.

Harry felt a tendril of Legilimency lick out at him.

"Would you like me to shoot you Professor?" Harry smiled sweetly at him, he didn't have the shotgun with him, though it was in his trunk, and completely replenished. Night Wolf had been aware that potions such as he had found existed, but had mostly worked on energy weapons that had a basis in magic and used some combination of wood, crystals and energy cells to create a magical energy weapon. It was that thing that the Brigadier had with him that night. A prototype he'd wanted to take out into the world to see how the different elements reacted away from testing devices and Night Wolf's castle.

The tendril of Dumbledore's legilimency withdrew so quickly Harry wondered the old man had received whiplash, Harry hoped so.

"Harry…there a matter that we should discuss, that of training." The temperature dropped a degrees in the office. Or it may have just been the glare Harry gave the headmaster.

"You must have training for the war…for our safety, the prophecy…" Dumbledore ploughed on regardless of Harry's look.

"Why? Why start to worry about it now? After keeping me locked away all these years?" Harry asked, remaining calm. "Or Umbridge, Snape, _Lockhart_? I learnt more from the one who wanted to kill me than of the Professors you brought in and Snape..." Harry trailed off, aware that he had unconsciously went to grab his wand.

Dumbledore paused for a moment. "Harry…there are elements which would seek to dissuade you from our side…" Dumbledore tried again.

"Tell me what is 'our' side?" Harry asked.

"The light of course Harry." Dumbledore said happily.

"There is no light side Dumbledore." Harry said simply.

"Harry would you side with Voldemort?"

"No." Harry replied. "There is no light side. The sun will always rise, and the great dark will always exist. I am sure even the centaurs would tell you of this. Light and dark are merely stages of the day and night cycle. Nothing more." Harry said and then fixed Dumbledore with a stare. "Have you decided to find James and Lilly's will? Can you explain why I was placed with the Dursley's…? Why have incompetent DADA teachers…and a Death Eater Potions Master? I could go on for a while. I doubt the you would answer them." Harry continued to bombard Dumbledore with questions as he rose from his chair, wondering why he even decided to come and see the old man, and if blasting off a few of his fingers would help the situation. It'd probably make him feel better, marginally.

"I do what do, what I have done for the war Harry," He paused. "For everyone, the prophecy Harry, you know it. You know what will come."

"Perhaps, but I am not a tool, you will not train me, you never have. That flawed excuse for Occlumency training shows that all too clear." Dumbledore was silent.

"You don't deny it. Headmaster, I want my parents will. Then we can talk about me not killing you….maybe." Harry finished.

"Would you really kill me Harry?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

"Perhaps, valid revenge I think… " Harry paused and smiled none too gently. "I wouldn't kill you actually, I think that there are things more drawn out that I could do. I would bring down pressures, remove the power and control you seem to see. Then, leave you with nothing. No power. Nothing." Harry turned as he felt a little ripple on his mind. "Dumbledore?" Dumbledore watched as Harry removed his wand, pointing it straight at Dumbledore's chest.

"Is revenge worth that much to you?" Dumbledore asked in a soft voice.

"Maybe, tell me why I shouldn't?" Harry challenged.

"There is much you do not know Harry, about how to ultimately defeat Voldemort."

"And would you ever have told me?" Harry asked.

"When the time was right, when I knew all the facts." Dumbledore stated.

"Such as where I've been, what I've been doing, and all by your say so."

"Yes." Dumbledore answered. Harry stared surprised at his honest.

"I want to know everything about Voldemort." Harry said trying to remain calm.

"And how to defeat him." Dumbledore added.

"Yes." Harry could feel his heart rising and a rage building in his body. He had felt this only once or twice when he had been training. Birmingham had been reticent to point to one particular thing that was the cause of it, but had said it would pass. It was basically the magical equivelant of puberty, though not exactly, there was all the spells and the stuff that his body had been through over the past year or 5. Harry knew he would do something he...might not regret but would certainly not be able to enjoy.

He may have called the Headmaster a series of names followed by a long and implied that Dumbledore had been suckling on Voldemort's nipple and being a Dementor buggerer.

It was only when he was down the corridor and had felt the blood stop pumping in his ears that he stopped.

"What did I just say?"

-/

It was a week to the Christmas holidays and Harry had been summoned, once again to Dumbledore's office.

They hadn't spoken since the start of the school year, and Harry hoped that meant that Dumbledore had something useful, otherwise he was prepared to go elsewhere for the rest of his education.

Or alternatively remove Dumbledore from Hogwarts, how hard could it be? The Ministry had recently undergone a shake up of its own with various scandals of the sexual variety coming out about Fudge and a man called Rufus Scrimgeour taking over as Minister recently. Both the Prophet and the Quibbler had published intimate and very detailed information about it in sealed sections of their publications. The trick to opening it was very easy.

Though what the Minister, the former Minister had gotten up to was very disturbing. Harry tried not to think about it, Hermione had said that it was fascinating. In a disgusting sort of way. Harry didn't think it was possible to do that with them...or have that other thing done to you. Especially as he'd seen the Minister and could actually have a mental image in his mind.

He really wished he had some firewhiskey just to blot it from his mind.

For Ron though it was probably worse because Percy had been implicated as well.

"Before I tell you Harry I must have your assurance you will remain in the castle throughout the holidays. This knowledge is not to be treated lightly."

"I can't promise that Dumbledore." Harry said cooly.

Dumbledore seemed unsurprised by Harry's statement, he also didn't give any indication he wasn't going to tell him despite hearing Harry's answer.

Several hours later, and looking at the diary that was encased inside some special magical field that looked like a block of ice that was melting Harry had a word for what he was fighting.

**Horcrux.**

"This one you weakened into something similar to a coma, it is still active, alive in some senses Harry, but held within this will keep it mostly safe, until it may be dealt with." Dumbledore said, watching him.

"What else do you know about these?" Harry asked tearing his eyes away from the melting block of ice which wasn't. All Dumbledore had said was that they were splits, shards of Voldemort's soul and that they were practically indestructible.

Was this why Dumbledore hadn't told him about the trials that he'd have to face? Harry wondered to himself and asked Dumbledore this also.

"I wished for you to have hope, when faced with this, Harry" He looked at him. "I did not wish you to fall to despair and the dark side of magic."

"I still would have wanted to know. After facing Quirrell I should have been told." Harry said, still wondering if killing Dumbledore might make him feel better.

It was quite late as Harry was leaving Dumbledore's office deep in thought someone grabbed him and threw him into an empty classroom. He was too deep in his musings to fight and then his heart quickened as he realised who it was who had grabbed him.

"Malfoy?"

"You said I needed to think for myself, well then, help me Potter." He spat. "Isn't that what you've always wanted me to say to you?" Malfoy threw a letter at him.

Harry exhaled. The right question at the right time had helped, like the right questions had helped him.

The letter was short, and lacking any sweetness and basically told Draco to request various potions from Snape, and that these holidays he would be marked by the Dark Lord.

"Well, you're screwed aren't you." Harry said handing the letter back to Malfoy.

"Thank you Potter for such eloquent description of my situation." Draco bit back snakily.

Harry shrugged. "I try."

"Well? What words of wisdom do you have Potter?" The bravado wasn't really in Malfoy's words.

Harry shrugged again. "Not many. I think you should run away, come back when this is all over."

Malfoy snorted. "A coward's way."

Harry wondered why he would ever even consider this, but if you couldn't help a school yard enemy who could you help?

"It's a valid way, would you rather fight for the 'light'?"

Draco Malfoy regarded him. "How then Potter are you going to rescue me?"

"Call it a one time offer Malfoy, this weekend meet me in Hogsmeade and be prepared to leave." Harry said and left the classroom not waiting for an answer.

Harry told only one person, one person who he thought had enough maturity about her to take on the information.

Hermione.

"You didn't tell Ron this?" Hermione asked.

Harry snorted. "He'd think I'd gone mad."

Hermione looked at him. "I think you've gone mad, and I've thought that for some time Harry."

"And helping my enemy?" He mused.

"Isn't Voldemort your enemy?" She asked reasonably.

"Yes." Said Harry simply.

"Malfoy's just caught, a result of family and choices outside his control." She reasoned.

"So I'm seeing myself in Draco?" Harry asked.

Hermione shrugged.

"I'm glad we're not talking literally."

Hermione snorted. "That Harry would be disturbing." A grin was forming on her face. "Although that would be the perfect way for the former-Minister to get out of the paper. A sex scandal involving Harry Potter." She finished as she broke into a fit of giggles.

-/

"So got a location in mind Draco?" Harry asked. They were standing in an alleyway between the shops and some houses at the end of Hogsmeade.

"Yes Potter, though how you can have your licence to apparate-"

"Shh." Harry said taking the piece of parchment. It had some coordinates on it. It was something he'd learnt at Nigh Wolf, though with his ability to shift using his animagus' ability it was something that he'd only done about a dozen times.

"Okay, take my hand and say goodbye to all of this."

"What are you drivelling about Pot-" And with that they disappeared.

Hours later Harry returned to Hogwarts, Hermione was waiting, her hands cupping a jar with a flame bouncing around in it.

"I thought you'd like to see someone. Ron wouldn't understand, you know that, maybe never understand. But you've risen above all of that pettiness." She said.

"Even after he's called you a mudblood on endless occasions?" Harry asked.

Hermione smiled at him. "Yes."

"What are you two doing out here? I've been waiting for ages!" Ron said as he walked out into the entrance hall.

"Just chatting." Harry said rising from the seat.

"Come on Harry, we need to pack for the holidays, you are leaving aren't you?" Ron asked.

"Yes Ron, I don't intend to stay here over Christmas."

-/

Remus was waiting when the train arrived at the station, Harry didn't know how he'd managed to make it from Hogwarts to here in time. Then he remembered who he was, where he was and other things like that.

"You're not coming with us Harry?" Ron asked disappointed. Molly was just looking between Harry and Remus with an expression Harry couldn't read.

"I have something to look into first." Harry said.

The Goblins it seemed had plenty of knowledge of houses and other titles which were abandoned and families that had been killed and everything.

It did however take some discussion with the Goblins to describe the abandoned house he'd come across, and he, in the end had to take one of them there.

No questions were asked about his method of transporting them there and he or at least Harry assumed the goblin was a he took a short look around, wrote something into his book and then disappeared of his own accord.

Harry rejoined Remus and the goblins at Gringotts.

"It will take some time to research this property and to locate the current holders of the deeds."

Harry nodded. "When you do, find out if they are willing to sell it."

The goblin nodded, but paused. "Old properties are often in families for long periods of time, it may take a while to negotiate, even for one so abandoned."

Harry nodded. "I can wait. I'd also like information on estates and properties that I own."

"Is there something in particular you are looking for Mr Potter?"

"Is there something Harry?" Remus asked curiously.

"Australia." Harry said picking a country about as far as he could from where they were at the moment.

"Very well." Was all the goblin said, while Remus just stared a him.

Harry shrugged.

A few hours later they, or rather Harry brought Remus, as he was un-practised on such long distance apparition to an isolated beach fronted house, in a small town in the Australian state of Victoria.

"About as far as we can get from Dumbledore, Voldemort and the war." On Earth in any case. Harry said the last part to himself.

"I'm going to go and fetch Tonks and tell Moody where we are." Remus said as he breathed in the fresh air.

Harry looked at Remus. "I thought you said you were unpractised at long distance apparition?" Harry quizzed him.

Remus smiled. "Now I know where I'm going I think I can manage it Harry." And disappeared with a loud crack.

Inside everything was clean, though dated, in fact nothing looked like it had changed since the 1970s.

He'd only begun exploring when Remus returned with Tonks, who promptly tripped over the rug on the way in from the outside.

"Retro." She said looking around.

"Have a look around see if there's any evil from the dawn of time lurking around here." Harry said from the kitchen where he was plugging in the fridge.

10 minutes later Harry was going to go upstairs to look for Remus and Tonks when they came down the stairs slowly.

"Evil from the dawn of time?" He asked and Remus shook his head, Harry looked to Tonks who looked back to Remus.

"We found a cot, it has your name on it Harry." Remus said as Harry ran up the stairs looking into each of the rooms.

In one of the final ones he looked in was a baby's room, with a cot, blanked and his name on the end of it. 'Harry James Potter'.

Harry came back down the stairs slowly.

"I thought…I thought Godric's Hollow was where they lived."

"The Potter estate is vast, James never liked to talk about it, around me especially. Maybe they had several houses set out ready."

"Maybe." Harry said. "But this house isn't a magical one, I haven't found a trace of any magical thing in here." Harry said, as if to prove this the fridge that Tonks had plugged in had begun humming contentedly to itself.

"Dumbledore never said anything." Remus said.

Harry snorted. "Why would he? He has a very twisted view of what is good for me. Which reminds me. Horcruxes." Harry said. "I'll be back in an hour or two." he said patting his pockets down and finding some of the appropriate Australian money he'd got at Gringotts before they departed. "Go and find some food while I'm gone." Then before they could argue he disappeared.

-/

"Horcruxes, that's what he said?" Harry was sitting with Birmingham and the Brigadier.

Harry nodded. "He didn't explain anything further than that, just that it was part of Voldemort's soul and not even the fang of a Basilisk into the diary I told you about was enough to kill it."

"It wouldn't, it's part of the very nature, the weave of a person into the universe." Birmingham said in a low voice. "It would take something powerful to remove it."

"But surely if magic created it-" Harry started.

"Magic can create things that it can't destroy. It is one of the mysteries of magic." Birmingham said with an awkward smile.

"Leave it with us Mr Potter, return when you're rested." The Brigadier said.

"You're sure?"

"I am, you are, despite things still a young man." The Brigadier waves a hand and Harry disappeared without a sound.

"How bad is this Birmingham?" The Brigadier asked as soon as Harry had departed.

"Complicated Brigadier." Birmingham said. "I've only read of it in passing, but have heard of the description. I believe we may need a working group to sort this one out."

The Brigadier sighed. "We knew the Voldemort problem would not be a simple one, it was hard enough to deal with the first time."

"This time we're ready, and we know, thanks to Harry what direction we are going in Alistair."

-/

_A/N:_

_Draco gets written out instead of becoming another regular character. His presence in the original story didn't help the story that much, but I didn't want to kill him, so written out was the easiest option. _

_The Horcruxes are a new introduction to the story, and for that I've had to temper Harry's relationship with Dumbledore, he's still manipulative and still mostly in-keeping with the old version. But Harry is slightly more mature in this version than he was in the old one. Less random explosions more consideration and thought_


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Some how he had managed to get to the end of the school year, Christmas had been uneventful, spent with Tonks and Remus and the return to school equally uneventful.

Aside form no one noticing that Draco Malfoy was gone.

That wasn't quite true, many including Malfoy's father and mother had noticed Draco Malfoy's absence, but only he (and Hermione) knew of Draco's disappearance and only he knew of his whereabouts.

Dumbledore hadn't even indicated that he knew that Harry knew, if he had he hadn't told him.

The researches into horcruxes was progressing slowly, both for Night Wolf and for Remus, Tonks and Moody. It seemed there was a distinct lacking of information out there.

Life at Hogwarts had progressed, he had found there was less that he needed to learn, less that he needed to know. But he went to the classes that filled in the blanks in his magical knowledge that he had not learned at Night Wolf. There was only so much that could be crammed into the time he'd spent there.

But now the school year was at an end again, it had felt like it had sped through, maybe it was his and the headmaster's decision to stay out of one another's way. Dumbledore had provided him with something useful, and it had only taken a death threat for him to get that information out of him.

But Harry still didn't have any of the most personal questions answered from Dumbledore. He was beginning to think that he might never get the answers he wanted.

The man was just too in control, in control and wanting more. In some ways he was worse than Voldemort, the friendly headmaster pulling, Harry didn't know how many strings in the background. He knew that he was pulling more than just his strings. But it was only his that he was primarily concerned about. The rest of the magical world, with a few exceptions could fall into the sea, they had done everything they could over the past few years to hang a noose around his head.

This and other thoughts were some that occupied his head whenever he sat in the great hall and watched the headmaster, who was on many occasions not even there. On those occasions Harry mused how many students were along with the Potions Master informing to Voldemort.

But now they, he and his friends were on the train, steaming away from Hogwarts.

Most of his friends in the carriage were asleep, they had been told by Dumbledore the previous night that the train was leaving early today, earlier than it usually did, so only he and Hermione were awake.

Hermione like always was reading, Harry was looking out the window letting the train's gentle swaying relax him. This was the first year at Hogwarts where nothing terribly bad had happened.

Except Snape and Dumbledore of course, and Ginny cornering him after Christmas and the look on her face when he said he wasn't interested in her advances. He didn't manage to tell her that Voldemort and beating him was what he was focusing on.

Ron had been angry, especially as Hermione had rebuffed some of his advances. It seemed to be the year for rejecting Weasleys.

It was at this point as he was being lulled to sleep he saw something approaching the Hogwarts Express, the engine, something as they were going around a bend, he wasn't quite sure what it was. And as he was pushing himself out of sleep to try and get a better look, the train that is exploded, throwing the carriages off the track.

Harry only realised this when something slammed through his chest and blood started to pool around him.

Then he blacked out.

-/

"He's awake." Harry blinked, he was somewhere white with people bustling around in his peripheral vision. There were multiple people casting spells, but he couldn't focus. Or breath all that well.

He was also in a great amount of pain, not the harsh pain from magic or spells but a raw physical pain, like he'd felt when he'd been really young and he though Dudley was being his friend and taking him up to the roof of a building near Privet Drive. He wasn't and he pushed him off it.

He'd not broken anything, which had been a miracle because when he was older he'd had to walk past that building on the way to the shops and magic must have saved him from the worst of it because there was no way he'd have survived in any other case.

"What happened?" Harry croaked. "The Express, it exploded." he said before anyone, it was Remus he realised who was beside him could speak.

"We know Harry, the Ministry is speaking with Dumbledore, Snape's missing."

Harry then collapsed into blissful unconsciousness again.

He awoke again, he didn't know how long had passed but someone was pouring something onto his chest. Whatever it was succeeded in making him feel infinitely better, though not instantly. Which went he knew it was bad.

"Feeling better?" Remus was there again and helped him sit up.

"Yes what-" Harry started to say as he winced and realised breathing would still be an issue.

Remus cast a spell around them, they appeared to be in some sort of tent.

"We're near the accident site, it was considered unsafe to move the wounded." He paused his face falling.

"People died?" Harry asked as he realised what Remus's look was.

Remus nodded, but his face was masking something else. "Dumbledore knew."

Harry would have leaned forward further but he was still in a lot of pain. "Knew what?" He hissed, the pain in his chest returning.

"That there was an attack planned. From what I gathered he thought it an acceptable risk to protect Snape." Remus practically spat the man's name. "He's been removed from Hogwarts as Headmaster and from all political and otherwise appointments. There's been a full investigation launched into this, Snape and his other dealings." Remus looked to Harry.

"Including what he's been doing with my life." Harry asked, trying to ignore the headache that was threatening to split open his skull.

"Yes." Remus said.

"Good." Harry said simply as Remus took a goblet from the side table. "Drink this, it will help you rest and recover enough to leave."

Harry took the goblet but paused. "What about the others? Ron, Hermione, Neville?"

Remus smiled gently. "It seems you protected them from the rough stuff. Cuts and bruises as the carriages fell off the tracks, nothing compared you your injuries."

"But-" Harry started.

"Drink Harry." Remus said gently.

-/

It was much later into the school holidays when Harry could get out of bed without wincing. Too much. As long as he didn't breathe too much he was fine.

The injuries had closed up and healed but there was still significant bruising, and despite having regrown ribs and a bit of a lung there was still a lot of bruising all over his body. Some of the scars he'd been told by Remus would never go away. Magical steel puncturing a magical individual's body or something.

Remus was in the kitchen with a cup of tea. "I wish you had decided to stay at Grimmauld Place."

Harry shook his head. "It reminds me of Sirius, and Dumbledore. How's the Order?"

"Moody and Tonks have taken Dumbledore's place as head of the Order, a young and an old hand, leading the way."

"Poetic." Harry said as he poured himself a cup of tea. "And Dumbledore?"

"In Ministry detention. Minerva has been appointed Headmistress of Hogwarts." Remus said and grinned at him. "I'm her Deputy."

Harry reached over patting Remus on the back, only wincing slightly as he did so.

"That's amazing. No Snape, no Dumbledore, life is looking up."

"Only Voldemort and his souls to deal with." Remus said.

"Something I have to return to-" Harry stopped. Remus looked at him. "Where I went over the holidays to investigate."

"Is there anyway I could sign this Official Secrets Act too Harry? We cannot continue to keep secrets." Remus asked calmly.

Harry nodded. "I'll look into it." He winced slightly as he finished his tea and turned to go back upstairs to change, when he came back down several minutes later Remus walked over to him.

"You're not going **now**?" He said in a stern tone where Harry was paused leaning against a table.

"No time like the present." Harry said pushing himself away from the wall as if to demonstrate that standing up wasn't still painful. It wasn't. As long as he didn't breathe at the same time.

"I could stop you Harry, I'm still your protector until you become of age." Remus warned in a joking tone.

Harry looked at Remus. "You know the contents of the prophecy, what I'll need to do Remus." Harry paused. "If I'd forced Dumbledore more, or" Harry shook his head. "I don't know. But maybe that wouldn't have happened."

Remus walked forward and took Harry in a hold, supporting him where he was standing. "We both know that was Dumbledore's doing, his manipulations, his protection of Snape, none of that was your doing. You are the victim in all of this Harry, of _his_ manipulating of everything."

"Starting with the prophecy." Harry said looking around him, this was where he could have lived, had things gone differently.

"And ending it. See you later Remus." Harry said and disappeared into the air.

Reappearing at Night Wolf Harry was relieved to find that shifting through the air did not cause the pain that walking, standing and breathing did.

That said, he still had to walk the short distance to the Brigadier's office.

After being admitted to his office and sitting down with relief he looked to the Brigadier who had remained silent as he'd walked gently into the office.

"I trust you've heard." Harry said in a rough voice.

"You look dreadful Mr Potter." The Brigadier said. "And yes, we have contacts within the wizarding societies."

"And even if we didn't it's plastered across all of the magical press." Birmingham said as he walked into the office, pressing a mug of something into Harry's hands. "Drink, it will speed your healing process."

"The people I spoke to said there was nothing else to be done, I did have a few ribs regrown and a bit of my lung." Harry joked. The look between Birmingham and the Brigadier suggested it was not a joking matter.

"Drinking the mysterious potion, what progress have you made with the horcruxes?" Harry asked.

Birmingham exhaled slowly and the Brigadier made a noise.

"We have assembled a group to research them and it will not be a simple procedure." The Brigadier began.

"It is as _Dumbledore_" Birmingham almost spat the name. "informed you. They are indeed shards of a person's soul."

"Judging" Harry paused to swallow again. The potion he had been given was leaving a horrible taste in his mouth, he never understood why potions couldn't have a bit of honey added to help with the taste. "by your tone this isn't good."

"No. From what we have discovered thus far, the creation of the horcruxes involved ancient magics than could be undone by the spell caster. We're unsure as to what or how, aside from one text stating that part of the process would be 'true remorse'." Birmingham said sitting into a chair next to Harry.

"Fat chance of that happening with Voldemort."

"All information also points to previous examples of Horcrux creation being a split of only one."

"And from what you have said there would be more than one." Birmingham finished and looked to the Brigadier.

"We'd like you to retrieve the diary so we can continue to do tests on it Mr Potter." The Brigadier said.

Harry looked to the two men, the request didn't seem too difficult and said as much.

"The Horcruxes have a power unto themselves. The stasis that Dumbledore has the diary in may protect you, but caution should be advised." The Brigadier stated.

"I'm always cautious Brigadier, should I go now?" Harry asked, he was feeling a hundred times better than he had when he arrived.

"In a moment Harry, I will need to show you were to bring it to when you return." Birmingham said as he rose from his chair.

Harry was lead down to an area deep in the lower levels of the castle where a series of what looked like sealed rooms had been set up.

"Here, we can isolate the Horcruxes." Birmingham gestured.

"But not destroy them." Harry asked. A solution to that particular issue hadn't been mentioned when he'd spoken to the two men.

"A soul is part of your living existence in reality, it is an amazingly strong force binding you to existence. It is an extreme perversion to split such a thing." Birmingham said.

"And extremely hard to destroy once it's in that state?"

"Yes." Birmingham said. "But we have some of our best people working on solutions."

"Both normal and extraordinary I hope?" Harry said with a light chuckle.

"And dangerous Harry, the Brigadier's orders." He said in a lighter tone.

"I'll be back soon." Harry said and disappeared, shifting with the wind.

-/

It was strange Harry mused walking through the corridors of Hogwarts when there was no one here, and despite it being the summer it was freezing inside the castle.

He wasn't sure why he hadn't just shifted into Dumbledore's office, but when he came to the gargoyles he thought he should have. But they seemed to look at him and regard him for several moments before they slid apart and allowed him access.

Inside the office it was as though Dumbledore was still Headmaster of Hogwarts, there was still a bowl of lemon drops and everything. Harry doubted there were any lemon drops were Dumbledore was at the moment. Locked away at some Ministry facility pending the various investigations and trials that were being brought against him.

Harry didn't know how many people had died in the train explosion and crash and on the occasions that he'd asked Remus he'd looked too ashen to tell him, but given that Dumbledore knew, he was being held fully responsible. Obviously he didn't launch the attack (probably) but he could have saved everyone had he told someone. Instead he'd kept it to himself.

Harry was broken out of his angry thoughts by the soft tilling of Fawkes who was watching him, and as he made eye contact with the phoenix it gestured towards a small bookshelf behind the Headmaster's desk. Following Fawke's gesturing Harry pushed the books aside he found what he had come for, it was the diary in a cube of glass that appeared to be melting like ice.

"Thanks Fawkes." Harry said, he listened to Fawkes' birdsong for a few minutes before taking his leave.

-/

"On the pedestal Harry." Birmingham said, he seemed to be keeping his distance.

"Something wrong?" Harry asked as he put it on the pedestal and stepped out of the chamber.

"I can feel a great amount of magic coming off it, I would not like to be in contact with this if it were not in Dumbledore's spell." Birmingham said in a low voice as the chamber sealed.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Harry asked looking around.

Birmingham shook his head. "For the moment **I** can't do anything to help, we're getting a quantum imager from our Australian base to be sent over to see if we can discern how this horcrux is linked to anything else and if Voldemort is aware of them."

"If he was wouldn't he have come after it by now?" Harry asked.

"That's what I'm hoping, but this is ancient magic and a very dangerous perversion of the art." Birmingham said and clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder. "You should rest, that potion I gave you will speed up and you're young so there shouldn't be any side affects. of concern" He said casually

"Such as?"

"Heart attack. Nothing major." He smiled at him.

"Marvellous." Harry muttered as Birmingham lead him towards the exit.

"Why can't I just leave as I came?" Harry asked when Birmingham told him not to 'shift' away.

"There are certain biomorphic dampening fields we've had to employ down here now that there is something in the isolation chamber, it will prevent any apparition and most other forms, I suspect even you."

"Interesting. I was able to go through Hogwarts' wards as if they weren't there." Harry commented.

"It is a different form of magic, there are an innumerable amount of facets to magic, not all within the bounds of a wand and the wizarding world."

-/

_A/N: _

_This is the most significant departure from the old story, but it serves the story in place of other things I've cut out._

_There were basically several instances throughout the school year that implicated Dumbledore in various misdeeds. There was a "Hogwarts CSI" sort of chapter, it was very awkwardly written and looking back I know what I was trying to do, but it is just very plodding and wordy. Kinda clever but it relied on Harry having far more knowledge than he would have been able to gain while at Night Wolf._

_There is also a significant time jump from Christmas holidays to end of school covered in the first couple of paragraphs. Aside from the Hogwarts CSI stuff only a few tangental sort of things happened and none really needed to be there._

_In place of Hogwarts CSI (which was one of the many things to get rid of Dumbledore), I've introduced a significant event in order to get rid of Dumbledore. Destroying the Hogwarts Express and the destruction and anguish that is involved in that was a better escalation of Dumbledore's actions._

_This chapter is also the closest to how I might write this story now, if I were writing it today. With more visceral injury and danger. I've tried to balance it with some humour still remaining in it though_


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Harry returned to his beachside house to find it empty and quiet, Remus had evidently popped out while he was away. The lack of anyone in the house didn't worry him because despite Birmingham's potion he was feeling quite the need for rest and ultimately sleep.

He found himself in his dreams and the return after more than a year's absence of his subconscious in the form of Sirius.

"Hey Harry."

Harry wondered if it was the potion or the after affects of the injuries he'd incurred. He'd heard that a lot of people had suffered concussions and suffered from some surreal dreams because of the magic that had been let loose following the explosion of the Hogwarts Express.

"Hello." Harry said neutrally, seeing _his_ Sirius in his dreams didn't fill him with the hope it once did.

"How's it going?" Said Sirius as he lounged in the chair.

"Shouldn't you know you're my subconscious after all." Harry replied carefully and wondering if he was just being paranoid.

"Of course Harry, of course, we are all in here together, if one cannot talk to oneself honestly who can we talk to?" Sirius said smiling at him.

Harry felt like something distinctly slimy or greasy had just wriggled up into his mind and stroked him inappropriately.

It was also then that he started to get the inkling of a headache, something that had never happened during his regular or even irregular dreams, which meant this was neither of those.

It seemed Sirius noticed something.

"Harry Potter." He said, standing up and walking over the the fireplace with his back to Harry. "You have recovered well from your experiences on the Hogwarts Express." Harry tried to watch the man who was no longer Sirius, but his eye just sort of slipped to the side as the man's appearance, his stature, his whole way of standing changed and altered in appearance, and then standing before him was the man himself.

"Fitting that you would seek out a dead man to speak to Harry Potter, it is a man you will soon be joining." Said a man who Harry never wanted near him let alone in his dreams.

Harry could feel his headache increasing and silently cursed himself for not practising his occulmency, something he'd forgone during his time spent recovering from the explosion. The potions that he'd needed to take early on disrupted his concentration and then later the pain without them, also being down in Australia away from the war and the constant information had lulled him away from being as paranoid as he had been.

"Severus has been most informative Harry to show the entrances to your mind so we might" He paused and gazed at Harry. "Talk." Harry felt like he was going to be sick, or it could be the pain that was coursing through his body. He made no move to rise from the chair, he wasn't sure if he would be able to with the pain he was currently in.

"What did you want to talk about Tom?" Harry asked and saw Riddle snarl at the use of his actual name. "Body counts?"

"I heard tale of my loyal Slytherins did an exemplary job of herding the mudbloods to the front of the train, where they might incur magic's wrath at their filth." His pride was evident in the tone of his voice.

Harry had quickly realised that Voldemort was quite psychotic, and far removed from the spirit of the man he'd seen in the Chamber of Secrets, who hadn't been a joy to talk to but wasn't as psychotic as this man, or what had once been a man.

"All" Harry stopped as he drew in a breath of air as pain washed over him. "All marked by you?" He asked trying to seem interested.

Voldemort beamed, or what he thought of as smiling at him. "Of course, no servants of the Dark Lord can remain unmarked, they must take the oath."

"One that Snape never renounced?" Harry bit out.

Voldemort smiled lounging back into his chair. "Such a passionate hate for you Harry. And Dumbledore, a weak wizard with a weak feeble mind, forever wishing for peace with the muggles."

Harry looked around and tried to remember how his dream ended last time, and it had been his subconscious noticing something in the outside world, he doubted he could rely on that to happen this time.

"This cannot be ended by your simple abilities Harry Potter, this is of my creation, taken from your memories of course." He chuckled. "The great Harry Potter, dreaming of a dead criminal and talking to himself." He lazily withdrew his wand. "_Crucio_." He whispered with great delight.

Harry tried to scream as the spell hit him, tensing his body and setting afire his nerves.

Then the spell let up. "This is not, as would appear a mere social call Harry Potter. I have been informed you are hiding away somewhere. But, we have something to settle Harry Potter and my Slytherins know you do not sit idly by."

"Maybe." Harry said as he drew ragged breaths. "Maybe I'm having a holiday."

"_Crucio_." The spell hit him again without warning. Voldemort did not shout or cry out the spell he simply said it and wielded it with vigour. Harry didn't know how it could work in this dream state they were in, but it felt as though he was in physical room with him. "You do not simply lay in wait Harry Potter, Dumbledore has his plans, his secrets as do you, and I will have knowledge of them myself."

Then the room shook, or the dream shook or something.

"It seems we have been discovered Harry, no matter, I can feel your mind bending and crumbling as you feel the wrath of Voldemort!" Then he cast the spell again.

Harry could feel his muscles clenching as though they had a will of their own. "I don't know." He said, mostly honestly, outside of the Horcurxes he didn't really have much of a plan. He'd told Remus what Night Wolf had found and Remus was yet to get back to him about it, so far he'd not really had much luck in finding out anything on his own. Hermione was at the moment out of the country with her parents, they had decided to give in to her pleading to leave Britain for the time being. Though it was proving more difficult for her to convince them that she was safe to return to school at Hogwarts, especially considering what had happened on the train ride home.

Then he felt the shaking again.

"Distracting yourself Harry with thoughts of the mudblood will not save you-" Voldemort was cut off as the world exploded in light and pain.

Then Harry found himself awake covered in blood and some other sort of something, he blinked up at Tonks and Remus both of whom had their wands out at him.

"Harry?" Remus asked softly.

"Remus. It's okay, it was Voldemort he and I were…talking." Harry said, trying to think of the word to describe what they'd been up to.

"We heard, you're, you've been tortured Harry." Tonks said quickly.

Then as Harry tried to move his body spasmed and he realised yes, he had been tortured and was promptly stunned as another wave of spasms went through his body.

"You will feel a little stiff lad, the after affects of such an indirect attack are long lasting." Moody was sitting beside his bed.

Stiff was an understatement he felt like he was trapped in concrete and that he'd had a building fall on top of him.

Moody leaned over with a goblet and a straw in it. "The potion will lessen the affects, had it more than once myself. It's terrible stuff." He said as Harry drank.

It was rank, but it was liquid, something that he was craving and anything that might help with the sensations he was feeling at the moment.

"What-" Harry started but found it hard to speak.

"Happened?" Harry nodded as Moody finished his sentence. "Penetrated your occlumency defences. Your scar seems to have exacerbated it, we're not sure why." Mood said as he gestured with his gnarly finger. "You sleep now lad." Moody said as Harry felt his eyes begin to get heavy again.

Harry awoke again late in the night needing the toilet, and was just about to get there without pissing himself, but only through what seemed like sheer will alone.

He had to shift through the air to get back to bed, doing that thankfully was without pain and it even felt a lot better than moving normally.

The next morning Remus found him sitting in the lounge room a cup of tea beside him.

"Harry!" He shouted in amazement.

"Remus!" Harry smiled but didn't get up, he hadn't managed the stairs down to the kitchen but had managed the short walk from the kitchen to the chair he was residing in at the moment.

"You should still be in bed, I don't even know how you managed to get down here considering." Remus said waving his wand at him.

"Considering I was visited by Voldemort masquerading for Sirius in my dreams."

Remus frowned deeply. "Moody thought he had to have found an entry into your mind through something personal. This would be Snape's doing."

Harry nodded. "Unless Dumbledore's been sharing secrets with the enemy."

"Dumbledore is being kept in one of the Ministry's most secure facilities that isn't Azkaban, so say our sources." Remus said.

"I've been practising again my occulmency training." Harry paused annoyed with himself for letting it happen. "I won't let it happen again, especially as-" He paused again to not mention Night Wolf. Remus noticed.

"Your mysterious muggle organisation that is helping you." Remus said. Harry raised an eyebrow. "No wizarding organisation needs such things as the Official Secrets Act Harry."

"No, not when every wizard can wipe a person's memory." Harry said, there was something deeply wrong with that he'd thought. It hadn't really been something he'd thought of when he'd heard talk of it at the Dursleys or even at the Tri-Wizard. But after he'd had Snape in his mind and now again with Voldemort there was something worrying with the idea that anyone's memories could be played around with so easily.

Remus crossed the distance of the room so he could face Harry.

"I would like to know about these people Harry, if seems like we are working on different sides of this. The war is taking its toll on all of us and I worry" He paused. "That you will be caught in the middle again." He coughed. "You're the last connection I have. And I am your protector, for now and even when you are of age."

Harry smiled gently. "I will be caught in the middle Remus, by prophecy or by will, I will be there to face whatever it is that I have to. The end to all of this has to come someway." Harry sighed and grit his teeth and pulled himself out of the chair, ignoring his nerves that were on fire as he did so. He could feel his legs' muscles trembling as he stood and tried to ignore it. "I don't intent to go running off Remus, and I will get you" Harry stopped for a moment seeking the correct word. "clearance to know about where I've been so we don't overlap." Then he sat down again. "What of your research into the horcruxes?"

"I haven't been able to find much, any information Dumbledore had is either in his head or hidden away somewhere. Minerva did mention he had something hidden in his office, but I haven't been able to get in." He looked to Harry. "I thought you may be able to Harry, with your…" He trailed off, still unsure of how to speak of Harry's ability, according to Tonks his abilities of his animagus were incredibly rare, even more rare than those of a metamorph. While many people did inherit small things from their animagus, his ability and the ease with which he used it was very rare.

"Shifting." Harry supplied.

Remus nodded and Harry shook his head. "I've already been to his office and retrieved it. Dumbledore's spell wasn't lasting very well." Harry said as he again pushed himself out of the seat and over to the fireplace where he could lean and face Remus' accusing stare.

"Harry." Remus started and Harry knew Remus would start a lecture about how he shouldn't have removed something like that without concerning the Order. But the Order already had its hands full with Voldemort's attacks. There had been a vampire attack on London that had taken the combined forces of the Order and the Ministry to put down. There had been several muggle causalities and turnings and from what he'd seen on the news the military had got involved. The news had been very vague about what had happened and he could see from some of the bystanders that had been interviewed that their memories had been modified.

The following day's news from Britain didn't have anything magical related concerning it. It had been explained as an unexploded WWII bomb, which didn't sound like a wizarding explanation of what had happened, mostly because Mr Weasley didn't know what a rubber duck or electricity was, explaining a flying bomb would be nigh on impossible. Which considering he was misused of muggle objects man was very strange now that he thought about it.

"I'll go now and investigate and get something sorted for you Remus." Harry said and disappeared as Remus shouted his name.

"What!" Harry called from the kitchen.

"Harry!" Remus rushed over. "You can barely stand, how can you go wherever it is that you disappear to?"

Harry shook a box of pain killers he'd bought from the local shops, they weren't very much good against the pain he was in. But they helped take the edge off enough that he could walk, if he leaned against a wall and tried not to think about the pain too much.

Moody said the pain would lessen in a few days and as his body and his magic recovered would be gone in a week or so. Maybe a few weeks.

Downing the pain killers as Remus watched with a critical eye he had an awkward 10 minutes to wait as they acted, the sensation wasn't exactly relief everything but, but his legs weren't as shaky as he departed his house.

He reappeared in the 'matter transmission' room. It was as the name suggested the room the Night Wolf personnel used if they were coming and going via whatever form of matter transmission. The Brigadier had asked that he arrive there rather than just appearing wherever he wished within the Night Wolf base. Security and all that.

By the time he had walked _slowly_ to the Brigadier's office it seemed he was expected with Birmingham and the Brigadier waiting. They both looked up concerned as he entered the room.

"What happened Mr Potter?" Asked the Brigadier as Harry gratefully took a seat and the offered glass of water and then explained.

Birmingham almost immediately went to the Brigadier's phone ordering in all likelihood another round of horrid potions for him to drink.

It at least did not take him very long to explain what had happened, the mental raping of his memory of Sirius and had the wizarding world's number one mad man in side his head torturing him.

"It is as we theorised Harry, the horcruxes are tied to an individual at an integral level." Birmingham explained as he forced Harry to down the remains of the potions he'd given him. While they were vile, even more vile than anything he'd had at Hogwarts he was beginning to feel the muscles that had been locked in a constant state of pain begin to ease. The same warnings came, mumbled by Birmingham, that he might get an innumerable amount of side effects from it. Cutting edge and secret organisation meant they had less hoops to jump through when creating experimental potions, or as the Brigadier implied jokingly they just didn't tell anyone that they were giving them to living beings. Harry wasn't sure which to believe.

"We believe we can use our space ships' scanners to locate the other horcruxes." The Brigadier started carefully.

Harry brightened up. "That's brilliant." But then frowned as the Brigadier didn't seem as elated.

The Brigadier looked to Birmingham. "It's the common thought around here that we should leave them where they are until we have an idea how to dispose of them." The Brigadier said.

"What?" Harry asked deflated again. "I thought… what about Voldemort and him…." Harry trailed off.

"That isn't the start of the problems, while we can help you locate them Harry, they will need to retrieved and if they're in a location that is frequented solely by wizards, then we will need to act carefully." Birmingham explained.

"Why?" Harry asked. "I thought with the transmat technology it could just…" Harry waved his hands to try and illustrate the workings of one of the matter transmission systems on board the ships. "You've got wizards here Brigadier."

"We have Harry, however there are political ramifications to be considered as well. While the government wants this situation ended, we are not at the by any means situation yet." The Brigadier and Birmingham shared a look. "It came close the last time and no one wishes to get to that point, but we must work within the confines of our areas."

Harry exhaled.

"This is not to say we are giving up Harry, but if you one day join us you'll see that the world is much more complicated." The Brigadier said. "And while we do not want a final event scenario we also cannot exacerbate the situation towards one."

"It'd be much easier if we lived on another planet." Harry muttered.

"That's the spirit." The Brigadier clapped him on the back. "Now I trust you came here for another reason other than to receive bad news."

"Remus, my protector wants…needs to know about this, that someone else is helping me through all of this."

Birmingham nodded and looked to the Brigadier. "He can be given clearance because of his connection as your protector, however he will still be bound by the Act."

"I think Remus can live with that, even if Moody won't." Harry said.

The Brigadier nodded. "I expected you to ask this question for a while Harry" The Brigadier paused as Harry looked at him curiously. "but I wished to wait and not presume to know you, while we have seen battle together we still have more to get to know one another." Harry nodded. "I had some research done on your situation, especially the precarious nature of your placement with your relatives with Dumbledore."

Harry looked to the Brigadier puzzled. "What?"

"Dumbledore placed you with your relatives, and while they did take you in and sent you to school, there was never any birth records lodged in the normal, non-magical world. Officially you don't exist."

"Does this help or hinder me?" Harry asked.

"Neither, but if you wish to exist and get things like a passport then some forms and a few stamps by a UN organisation and it will all be pushed through the various departments without any questions." The Brigadier said.

"Good to know I can exist when this is all over." Harry said exhaling.

"Now, we should organise a place to explain things to your protector." Birmingham said after a moment.

-/

The location where the were to meet was a nondescript office building in London, Harry and Remus arrived the following day. With Remus already a little agitated at the conditions that Harry had already laid out.

Anything relating to the horcruxes themselves and any other magical thing that wasn't related to Night Wolf could be shared within their select group, but they would still have to work within the confines of the Official Secrets Act when other non-Earthly things were concerned.

Harry stayed in the background while Remus stared accusingly at Birmingham and Birmingham ignored Remus and then the signatures were taken and Remus had the basics explained to him.

"It explains a lot, some of the, I wouldn't call them friends, but not enemies who said they were 'taking a holiday' and then disappeared from the wizarding world. I remember Dumbledore being quite annoyed by this happening all of the time." Remus mused.

"We have helped several individuals out of situations where they might have been prosecuted or worse within the wizarding world Remus." Birmingham said as he took back the various piece of paper signed. "How are you going with the manuscript Harry gave you?"

"That was your work." Remus mused, Birmingham inclined his head in the affirmative.

Remus exhaled. "It has been difficult to discover some of the…" Remus trailed off as though searching for a word. "The elements of the lyncanthropy are tangents I've found difficult at times to grasp." Remus shook his head. "I thought with the Wolfsbane that it was a solution."

"A poisonous solution, not one any civilised individual should turn to." Birmingham said as he stood up. "I will leave Harry to explain the situation with the horcruxes." He paused looking to Harry. "Within the act as we understand it of course Harry."

"Of course Birmingham." Harry said as Birmingham departed.

Remus looked to Harry, Harry offered his hand. "Why don't we go somewhere more comfortable than this office?"

Remus cupped the mug of tea and wished, not for the first time that he had something stronger. It was worse than his and Moody's researches had indicated.

A split across one's soul into horcruxes. For the one that was contained within the diary to not have been destroyed by a Basilisk's fang meant there was ancient magic involved in it. They must have been split along particular ley lines of the Earth, which meant elemental forces were instrumental in their creation.

"I believe Harry this explains much, and how you survived on that fateful night." Harry spun around extremely quickly from where he'd been standing at the window watching the tide slowly go out.

"Me?"

"Voldemort has manipulated powerful magics to create more than one horcrux, as your associates have postulated. But to create them and for it not to be destroyed using a Basilisk's fang indicates ancient magics, they are elemental in nature." Remus paused allowing this information to sink in for Harry.

"Your animagus allows your movement through the elements, the most vital one of all; air. It is possible there are things laying in the abilities of an Everlasting Raven we do not know, yet discovered." Remus paused. "When Voldemort tried to kill you his elementally shattered soul came into conflict against your innate elemental animagus form."

"Then shouldn't my mum or dad have been…" Harry trailed off.

"Your form is passed through the family Harry, but it must have been many generations ago. That there is scant a record of it is a suggestion to this."

"Do you think Dumbledore knew?" Harry asked Remus looked at him. "Only two people fit the prophecy, me and Neville, do you think Dumbledore knew what was lurking in my bloodline and engineered it so my" Harry's breath caught in his lungs. "So that my parents and I were in the firing line?"

"And so Voldemort would be defeated but not destroyed and someone would grow up to be there to destroy him once and for all." Remus finished. "Dumbledore is still rotting in a Ministry cell." Remus said with annoyance. "It would be difficult to question him without eavesdroppers."

Harry shook his head. "It doesn't matter, we have to concentrate on Voldemort and destroying the horcruxes." Harry paused. "For now."

"Only then will your associates help." Remus seemed to distrust this element of Night Wolf's assistance. But the Brigadier had explained to him that while they did have space ships and everything like that it also wasn't cheap to use all of that stuff. There needed to be outcomes for these things and they couldn't just go into a plan half baked and hope that it turned out for the best.

"I could go trampling all over the countryside with no idea where to find them Remus."

Remus grinned at him. "No doubt dragging your friends with you as you went." He paused. "Thinking of Harry, you can tell them, about this or…" He trailed off looking at Harry's expression.

"I've put them in so much danger Remus, Hermione's had her family go to a different country because of me."

"No Harry." Remus reached across taking Harry's hand. "Because of Voldemort."

Harry exhaled and just at that moment Hedwig flew into the house looking extremely annoyed. Harry wondered if it was the journey down to the southern hemisphere.

Or maybe that he'd practically bequeathed her to Hermione. At the moment there was no one that he needed to send owls to.

"Hey girl." Harry said and winced as she pecked at his arm in a manner he recognised as extremely pissed off. After some time during which Remus was only amused he removed a letter from her.

"It's from Hermione." Harry said. Her parents were safe and she was now staying with Ron at Grimmauld Place. Harry looked to Remus. "You knew she was staying there?"

Remus shrugged. "I've opened the house up for any Order members who need assistance, it will never be a place where I will feel comfortable."

"I'll see what I can say to them." Harry said as he stood up again, wincing still.

"You're still in pain?" Remus asked, concerned.

Harry brushed his concern away with a wave of his hand. "It's nothing Remus, Moody said this'd happen. Something I plan on not happening again."

"Okay girl, we're going to go back to England now." Harry said talking to Hedwig who looked more annoyed as Harry took Remus' hand and they disappeared.

-/

"So this isn't just a kill him and be done mate?" Ron asked, they were in one of the many drawing rooms of number 12, there was a pot of tea and 2 undrunk cups of tea. Harry had explained his situation so many times he'd had three cups in the time that they'd been there.

"And ancient magic." Hermione mused to herself.

"Yes, I though I should…" Harry trailed off, not sure what to say. "Tell you, keep you guys informed."

"About what you and your mysterious friends are helping you with." Hermione regarded Harry.

Harry nodded. "I've said all I can about them."

"That it's covered by the Official Secrets Act. Really Harry how did you manage to become involved in something that requires you to sign the act?" Hermione blustered Ron seemed a little confused.

"I still don't get how a piece of paper can stop you from telling us, it's not like a wizard's oath or something, there'd be no real consequences." Ron reasoned.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other and Harry sighed. "It's a legal agreement Ron in the muggle world it's like an oath to not tell people."

After some silence Harry spoke again. "Look would you two like to come and stay down with me for a bit, get away from here." Harry offered.

Hermione looked at him curiously but Ron spoke first. "Sorry mate, I've got my apparition licence test later in the week."

"And then?" Harry asked.

"Hopefully, not sure about long distances, how far's it to your house?" Ron asked, Harry wasn't sure what constituted far but he imagined another continent separate by a sea or two was it.

"Bloody hell Harry, how do you manage to apparate between here and there all the time?"

Harry then had to explain his animagus ability in more detail to Ron, something he'd skipped over in the previous year.

He was more than a little annoyed that he didn't know and that he'd 'taken Hermione for a ride without me' and had gone off in a bit of a sulk.

Harry didn't know what to do, or if there was anything he could do.

In then end Hermione came and found him, with her bags packed. "What about Ron?" Harry asked Hermione shrugged.

"He's been a bit off ever since I…" She trailed off seeing him. "Let's go." She said taking his arm.

Back in his house in Australia Harry looked to Hermione for an explanation. It seemed she'd rebuffed his advances for their 'relationship' to go a bit further.

"He was just being so childish, I was trying to sort out my parents and Ron was being…" She trailed off.

"Ron." Harry said. "Come on." He said dragging her outside to the sandy area at the back of the house where it backed onto the beach. "You can sit back and forget your worries." Harry said.

It was a few hours later as he levitated some drinks out to where they were sitting and as Hermione was erecting a beach umbrella against the sun, it was then that Harry realised what he needed to do. Or rather how he was going to get rid of the horcruxes.

"Harry why are you grinning like that?" Hermione asked.

"I've just had a megalomaniacal idea." Harry said with a grin.

"Oh no." Hermione said taking a drink off the tray.

-/

_A/N: _

_Again this is something of a departure from the original story by way of my inclusion of the Horcruxes. _

_But not a huge one, I have had to make concessions to the story in relation to the Horcruxes, mostly by bumping up how powerful / indestructible they are. _

_Things like ley lines, elemental magic and Harry's Everlasting Raven abilities were in the original story, but here they're actually given a reason for being there. Unlike the old story where I just threw in as many ideas as I could *just in case* I wanted to use them at a later date (I didn't most of the time)._

_The vampire attack, mentioned here also existed in the original story, but Harry was there and messed around with ley lines and the military and UNIT and several other things. It still happens with the military and other things, just Harry wasn't there to save anyone's bacon_


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Harry had left Hermione at his house following a late meal in order to return to the United Kingdom in the day time.

He was armed with a crazy idea after spending too much time lazing around on the beach, not the way he thought he'd be spending his fight against Voldemort, but it was nice not to be attacked all of the time or having your friends turn around and stab you in the back or anything like that.

Arriving at Night Wolf he was able to walk, rather than hobble in extreme pain to the Brigadier's office.

"We must get you a phone Mr Potter so you can be informed and inform us of your impending arrival." The Brigadier said jovially as Harry told him he had an idea about the horcruxes, the Brigadier said to wait for Birmingham.

Once he'd arrived Harry sat down with them.

Harry explained about Remus' theory about elemental forces and the like and then launched into his idea. "I think we should throw them and Voldemort into the sun."

"The sun." The Brigadier repeated.

Harry nodded with a grin.

"Hmmm." Was all Birmingham said and then after several moment's thought spoke again. "It can't be our sun, there's a possibility that it could create extreme instability in a star with the magical forces that we are dealing with." Birmingham mused.

"But?" Harry asked.

"It's possible, but not without extreme risk." Birmingham mused. "I will have to check with other scientists, our astrophysicists will be most interested that we plan to potentially destabilise a star." Birmingham seemed amused by the concept.

The Brigadier made a neutral noise. "I will also need to run this past Geneva. But for now, this is enough cause to begin investigating the collection and storage of these horcruxes Mr Potter."

Harry brightened up, and then frowned as he realised what he was about to face, the shards of Voldemort's soul. Facing the diary had been bad enough.

Though the worst was to come as Birmingham and the Brigadier exchanged glances at Harry's enthusiasm.

"What?" Harry said.

It was later when he was standing in a room in a ship orbiting the Earth that he began to challenge his initially positive thoughts.

The contraption that stood before him had more needles than he'd ever seen before and like some sort of torture device.

The scientists and wizards who had been working on the horcrux 'problem' as they'd termed it had said that because the magic used to create the horcruxes was ancient magic on an almost elemental level and his ability was also elemental and ancient it meant that they both 'vibrated' on a similar level, along with the horcrux that was held by Night Wolf they had theorised a method of locating them.

Unfortunately it meant 'plugging' a living being - him into the ship's sensors to give a real live interface for them to use as a template to scan from.

It had to be him and it had to be him alive, something to do with how magic interacted with technology.

"This will not be pleasant." The man, he was a wizard, a Sorcerer by UNIT's ranking system, he could see an bold S next to his rank of Lt on his uniform.

"I've faced the Cruciatus many times." Harry said as he stood up into the device.

"The difference Mr Potter is you faced those unwillingly there was no choice but to face it." He and others stepped forward to strap him in. The straps bit into his flesh. "Now you must face this torture, knowing that one word from you will stop the process."

"The torture is my life while Voldemort lives Sorcerer Lieutenant Williams." Harry said, he had resolved to use everyone's name and rank. He had indicated to the Brigadier that this was something he wished to be involved in, UNIT, Night Wolf, should he survive. _"There is no should Mr Potter, __you will __survive._" He'd said.

Harry looked over to Birmingham who was standing off to the side waiting. He was personally supervising this initial procedure that would identify if it was just one more horcrux or if they needed to plan for even more. There would need to be several more procedures like this to identify exactly where the horcruxes were. So there was that to look forward to.

"How worried should I be Birmingham?" Harry asked, trying to relax as the straps were tightened and the areas where the needles would puncture; those carefully worked out lines of elemental power across his body, they were prepped and readied.

Elsewhere sensors were aimed at the United Kingdom and Europe, ready for the information that was to be revealed to them. They would also detect if it was elsewhere in the world, but any closer scans would need Geneva's approval. For now Europe and the United Kingdom would have to suffice.

"Not worried at all Harry, we have some of the finest doctors on board." He said. One of the scientists looked over to him and nodded.

Harry didn't know if he was shouting or not, the pain whited out all experience, all comprehension, it was as though it had become an abstract concept for him, beyond that of the cruciatus curse, it was so far beyond that he lacked the words to describe it, he could only barely comprehend the pain concept that was billowing through him like a storm. It wasn't coming from anywhere, nor did it seem to have a peak or a trough, unlike the cruciatus which came in waves. This was just white hot pain ripping through him at a constant rate. Tearing at his very existence.

And then it stopped, the white out pain just…flicked off like a light and all that he was left with was a slight tinging on his skin where some of the scientists and medical people were spraying something onto his skin where the needles had been removed.

He felt almost like he was floating, and then he looked to Birmingham who was on the phone, or whatever you used on a spaceship looking grave.

"Birmingham?" Harry asked, still feeling like he was floating as he was guided over to him.

"I think we should talk with the Brigadier on Earth Harry."

A journey through the teleport and they were back on Earth, this matter transmission travel was almost becoming pedestrian to him, Harry thought to himself.

He quite liked that, that like magic this new world of technology was becoming _normal_.

The Brigadier looked quite concerned when they entered.

"You'll want to sit down Harry." The Brigadier said motioning him to sit.

Harry mused to himself that it must be bad if the Brigadier was calling him Harry, outside of their initial meeting he had always called him 'Mr Potter'.

"We were able to detect all the horcruxes, and it appears it is not just an elemental connection you share with Voldemort…" Birmingham started.

When he finished Harry wasn't sure what to say, or what to do. He wasn't sure if he felt like crying, like smashing up another man's office, or…just giving up. Either way it seemed death was in his future.

But the Brigadier spoke up. "You mustn't despair Harry, with all problems there are solutions."

"I already have the working group coming up with solutions, and we should be getting feasibility reports and theories back from our astrophysicists and sorcery experts by the week's end. There is, must be a solution." Birmingham added.

"Just one that will involve extreme amounts of pain, if today is anything to go by." Harry said in a deflated jokin tone.

"That's the spirit." The Brigadier said merrily, though the positive tone was matched with concern across his face.

Later Remus found Harry after Hermione had alerted to him of Harry's sudden desire to drink alone there were several empty bottles of various muggle spirits. Hermione sat in the house watching as he approached Harry.

"Harry?"

"Remus." Harry sounded remarkably sober and serious, much more serious than he had seen him ever before.

"What have you discovered Harry?"

Hermione watched as Harry seemed to break down, shouting and crying at Remus.

She didn't know where he'd gone or what he had found out during the long day that he'd been gone, but whatever it was that he had found out had brought him back to the house a broken man.

She'd tried to ask but he'd been consumed with anger and sadness and said he needed some time to think, the bottles he had she knew contained a sizeable amount of alcohol.

Remus listened as Harry explained what his associates at 'Night Wolf', a fitting title for who they helped within their organisation had shown and revealed to him earlier in the day.

As Harry finished he stepped away from Remus and sat down again to try and pick up a bottle. Remus banished all the bottles away without breaking them a spell he'd perfected when he'd been with Sirius and James on one of their binges.

"Your associates are right Harry, there will be a solution to this problem." Remus focused on Harry's eyes. "There must be, I will make sure of it, until then we still have a task ahead of us."

Harry sat up suddenly. "You're right Remus! You're right!" Then he threw up and passed out. Remus only just caught him before he pitched forward towards his own sick.

-/

Harry awoke to find Hermione sitting beside his bed, a laptop computer in her lap.

"Hermione?" He asked blearily.

She smiled gently. "Remus explained." She said passing him a bottle of water with a straw in it. He quizzed her with his eyes. "Just water, that was a lot of alcohol you drank." She said.

After a few moments he sat up. "What are you reading?"

She looked at him curiously. "I've been researching mysterious organisations that frequently use the Official Secrets Act and that deal with things the are strange and mysterious, that could deal with what you're facing." She paused. "That might know something about magic."

Harry tensed, though Hermione finding out on her own, especially with whatever she could dig up on her computer wasn't him being treasonous and breaking what he'd signed on the dotted line or anything like that.

"And?" He asked as he finished the bottle of water.

Hermione smiled and sat up slightly straighter. "Well, I think you're working with one of the organisations set up to deal with alien incursions. Something like the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group" She said, the name rang a bell for Harry, as he'd been told by the Brigadier to look through some of UNIT's stuff to see if he actually wanted to work with them. "Or Torchwood." Harry stared hard at her, he'd not heard of them, but according to the Brigadier there was a whole world of stuff going on around and on the Earth that he'd barely scratched the surface of. "Or the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce."

"Oh?" Harry asked curiously.

"I think that's the best bet, they've dealt with dozens of big alien incursions before, and they've got enough clout to deal with magic I'd say." She said.

"And all this from paranoid websites proclaiming the fall of our civilisation at the hands of super-intelligent cabbage from the fifth universe?" Harry asked as he craned to look at the screen on her computer.

She glared at him. "You must be feeling better Harry." She said as she walked calmly out of his bedroom.

Later Harry came down the stairs to find Hermione, who was still using a laptop that she'd set up at the small desk beside the equally small bookshelf downstairs. There was a much larger study upstairs near the bedrooms.

Hermione turned around and Harry matched her gaze with an equally quizzical look.

"Remus said you wouldn't mind." Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

Hermione exhaled. "Alright he said that you shouldn't be spending all this time alone."

Harry sighed and went over to the kitchen. "Tea?"

"Please."

As Harry busied himself with making the tea he looked over at Hermione. "So should I ask why you've suddenly acquired a laptop Hermione, I somehow doubt that it's to research the clandestine organisations that I may or may not have signed _legally binding_ documents with."

Hermione looked over at him again. "Well Harry, if you must ask."

"I must Hermione you are after all using my phone line for your modem."

Hermione looked at him surprised. "I didn't think you'd notice."

"I'm smarter than your average wizard."

Hermione snorted. "A concussed amnesiac would be smarter than your average wizard about "muggle" technology Harry."

Harry laughed, Hermione and him and joked at one point at the "point" of a rubber duck. Ron hadn't seen the joke.

As he set a mug of tea down beside her computer Hermione embraced it with both hands; warming them. That was despite the relatively mild day where they were.

"I had to make certain promises to my parents before they're let me return to Hogwarts." She said after several moments of silence between them.

Harry remained silent, but Hermione got out of the chair at the desk and moved the more comfortable chairs in the living room. They were some funky '70s chairs, chunky and comfortable practically new.

"That's another part to the reason why came here, why I came down here instead of being with Ron or even at the Order's HQ." Hermione paused again as she carefully put the mug on a coaster. Harry also put his on one, though he'd not noticed that there were even coasters in the house. They were the same as much of the house was in 1970's styles.

"Ron and I have ended out short 'relationship'." Hermione said as she made air quotes with her hands.

Harry blinked, he knew Hermione and Ron had grown close over the last year or two but he wasn't really sure what had been happening.

"Your parents?" Harry tried but Hermione shook her head.

"No Harry. This was before that." She inhaled a breath. "One day he started to talk about children, about how we'd be working at the Ministry together and then have a family how I'd stop working at the Ministry and he'd step up and provide while I cared for them and…" She trailed off. "He wouldn't even be dissuaded of this life he'd created. Wouldn't listen to me."

Harry wasn't sure what to say. Ron had never said anything like that to him. Maybe once or twice he'd mentioned wanting 'loads of kids'. "You know Ron's like that. Look what happened during the Triwizard." He said with a slight trace of bitterness in his voice.

Hermione looked over and nodded. "And you've never forgotten that side of his personality have you? Just like I could never forget that he'd always be thinking about making me a baby machine."

"That's a disturbing image Hermione." Harry said.

Hermione just held his gaze and smiled slightly. "My parents made me agree I wouldn't spend all of my time with 'pro-wizard people'."

"So you chose me?" Harry asked curiously.

"I asked Reums who he'd recommend, your newly acquired accommodation seemed fortuitous, and as your protector he's looking out for you Harry." Hermione answered reasonably.

"That's not all is it?" Harry asked.

Hermione shook her head. "I can complete my wizarding schooling, it's a part of me they acknowledge that needs the education to wield it. But." She paused. "But I also have to take classes and tests to get a GCSE or at least work toward one."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I took a practise test Harry. I failed it." She smiled. "Spectacularly, it seems learning things at Hogwarts doesn't prepare you."

"I don't think they ever said it would." Harry mused.

"Except for a Ministry position or something like that. Careers wasn't really as enlightening as I thought it could be." She exhaled again as a sigh. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do Harry, after Hogwarts."

"Go to university Hermione, learning is what you're good at." Harry replied and Hermione smiled at him. "On the way there you'll work out what you like doing."

"You're a good friend Harry Potter."

"As are you Hermione Granger." Harry said and had a musing pass over his mind. "How do you feel about spontaneous human combustion?" He asked as the musing turned into a random thought about what happened to some UNIT recruits, he'd read it in amongst all the warning literature about UNIT.

Hermione frowned and then stared at him as though he'd gone mad. "I don't think I've got any thoughts on it Harry, should I? Are you thinking of doing that to Voldemort?"

Harry snorted. "Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, I might do all three on a spit."

"Thank you Harry I now have a mental image of those three apple in mouth rotating above an open flame."

Harry grinned. "Glad I could be of service."

There was another bout of silence before Hermione asked a question.

"What did you discover Harry?"

Harry frowned. "That lead to me binge of drinking?" Hermione nodded.

"I wondered if I was going to escape the dragon sized question."

"You don't have to Harry." She said softly. "I won't ask again."

Harry shook his head. "You know about horcruxes?"

Hermione nodded. "Remus explained that."

"There's one in me." Harry said in a neutral tone.

Hermione's eye widened and she threw herself at him and embraced him in a hug.

"We'll work something out Harry." She said in a soft voice.

"I've already got my best people on it." He said.

"What people?" Hermione questioned. "You have people?"

"People I need to go and see." He said breaking out of her embrace.

-/

"Mr Potter, Harry. How…how are you?" The Brigadier asked as Harry took a seat. Birmingham was elsewhere on assignment the Brigadier had explained.

"After an amount of binge drinking, vomit, passing out and tea. Better Brigadier."

The Brigadier chuckled. "Good man."

"I just wanted to check in with everything, and ask something about joining Night Wolf…" Harry started and then explained about Hermione.

-/

It was late in the afternoon when he returned, the time difference between Australia and England still doing his head in a bit. Harry found Hermione was still working, but this time old wizarding books were open in her lap.

Harry put down the case that contained special sat-phone the Brigadier had given him that would allow him to be contactable by anyone from Night Wolf it was also impervious to most magic.

"I'be been off with my mysterious organisation before you ask Hermione."

"I wasn't Harry."

"And I asked about something for you." He said and explained what he'd asked of the Brigadier.

The mostly simple answer was yes, she could join and they would help her with entry into university and to work out what she wanted to do and what might be useful in Night Wolf and UNIT's organisations either on Earth or out there in the rest of space. None of the space-based stuff he mentioned to Hermione.

"So what now Harry." She was already moving the books off her lap.

"In order to help me you'll sign something similar to what Reums signed with the provision for more clearance and entry after you finish Hogwarts or whatever."

"So I get to go from the wizarding world which is secretive about itself to a clandestine organisation that makes you sign legal documents before you can even discuss what they do."

"And only with other people who know about it." Harry added.

"Marvellous." Hermione deadpanned. "My parents will love that."

"At least you won't be in the dangerous wizarding world." Harry said brightly and didn't mention the amount of UNIT soldiers that went mad, spontaneously combusted, had nervous breakdowns, or just left the organisation and wandered away from modern civilisation. But the Brigadier and Birmingham had said those who stuck around were extremely valuable members of the organisation. And with 'sorcerers' they had a 73% retention rate.

-/

"A sun? Harry?" Hermione shouted as she apparated into the house they shared.

Harry looked up from the cereal that he was eating.

Harry shrugged.

Hermione had obviously been told of his plan either by who ever had got her to sign the act or Remus.

"They're elemental Hermione, not even the Basilisk fang could destroy one. At least I didn't suggest a black hole."

"No Harry that would have been completely insane." She said looking at him.

"What's my plan?" He asked curiously.

"Mildly insane." She replied full of seriousness. "Shouldn't you be packing?"

Harry had discovered that Hermione started packing for Hogwarts at least 2 weeks prior to the date actually arriving, carefully weighing up what she needed, what she could take, what to leave at home. Home which had turned into the beachside house they'd started sharing when she'd decided to move in with him for the rest of the holidays.

Not that he minded, Remus had been right, it was nice to have someone to talk to.

Not that they wanted to take it anything more than that. They were friends, mates, not…that was something he couldn't even push his imagination to go to. Hermione was his friend, maybe his best friend now...now that they shared more secrets than he ever did with Ron.

-/

_A/N:_

_More torture of Harry, because he just had too much of a good time the last time around. That it is torture that he willingly endures, all the better._

_Hermione looking to study outside the wizarding world was something in the original story, but in that I kinda just dropped it in during the last chapter or so. I thought it'd be better for her to explore and then fail at something and realise the wizarding world (funnily enough) doesn't prepare you if you want to go to university_


	13. Chapter 13

CH 13

"How many of these people are Order members Remus?" Harry asked Remus who was standing at the station looking more than little bit anxious.

Maybe it was the sight of the Hogwarts Express which _hadn't_ managed to be repaired since last year's attack. Instead of red and gleaming it looked as though it had been repaired with pieces from other engines with other parts made of fresh new stainless steel that hadn't been painted. The signs on the front and side that proclaimed its name seemed to have been straightened out with magic and then with something industrial because they were both bent and broken in places.

"A testament to Dumbledore's madness." He'd heard someone say. Harry couldn't help but agree with them.

The carriages were also not the regular carriages, though they were still it seemed magical carriages.

"They're the backup carriages from the service that goes to Hogsmeade." Luna said at the unasked question. They were sitting together with Luna and Neville.

Ron hadn't appeared yet.

Harry had somewhat forgotten about Ron and the rest of the magical world. He'd only really interacted, or been forced to interact with Remus, Tonks and Moody on occasion. One of those three had picked up his and Hermione's things for Hogwarts, Moody reasonably arguing with them that considering how the world was at the moment spending time in the Southern Hemisphere was probably the best move.

It had made him wonder if that had been his parents' intention all along, to hide away, not under a spell but just through distance.

Then, someone kicked him.

"You think too much Harry." Luna observed as Harry swore.

"Harry, there's ladies present." Neville exclaimed.

"Don't worry on my account Neville." Hermione casually said as she looked out the window.

"Harry doesn't know any of the important wizard swears so it doesn't matter." Luna commented.

Neville looked at her. "Wizard swears?" He asked, Harry shrugged.

As the train got moving Harry decided to go looking for Ron. They had passed a few letters, well he'd sent a few. Ron hadn't sent any back.

He didn't expect to be punched as soon as he saw him. That was a surprise.

Then Ron started to rant and from what he gathered Ron thought that he was being inappropriate with Hermione.

Tonks it seemed had let slip that Hermione was living with him _un_accompanied.

"Ron, shut up and if you touch me again I'll break your legs." Harry said as he caught his breath.

The compartment Ron was in had gracefully emptied itself during their 'conversation'.

"You'll do what?" Ron was red faced and panting slightly.

"Break your legs Ron, or get rid of them, I still remember what Lockhart did to me." Harry said as he pulled himself into one of the seats.

"Hermione is living with me yes. She invited herself in for the holidays." Harry paused, he could almost feel bruises on his chest forming. "What did you say to her?"

"What did _I_ say to her Harry?" Ron's face was very red. At this point he briefly wished Malfoy was around, Harry was sure he'd have something cutting to say which would be amusing. Not to mention it'd distract Ron.

"What're you smiling at Harry?" Ron seemed annoyed that he wasn't being intimidating enough to warrant Harry's full attention.

"Just imagining if Malfoy was around."

Ron seemed genuinely puzzled for a movement before switching back to angry.

"What do you mean what did I say to her?"

"You started to talk about families and babies." Harry explained slowly.

Again Ron seemed confused. Harry wondered if Ron had got the talk about how people have sex. They'd given the girls the 'period talk' when he'd been in primary school. The boys were given the 'your bodies are changing' talk.

Supposedly it got more interesting after the went on to secondary education.

Facing death and other people's death along with torture sort of fit the description of interesting.

"What?" Ron finally said. "What do you mean?"

"You went on to Hermione about families and babies and things like that."

Ron was nodding as he spoke. "Yeah, Harry. I know you've not met anyone, but, that's the point isn't it mate?"

Harry eyed Ron and again wished Malfoy would show up, though that was unlikely. "Point?"

"Of you know…" He paused. "Sex." Ron hissed blushing.

"I wouldn't know Ron, but that's one of the points to it." Harry wondered how he'd gotten into this conversation and then realised it was his own fault. Hermione had given him a warning look and Luna had smiled at him mysteriously.

_I bet Luna knew this would happen_. Harry thought to himself.

"Harry, you have a relationship at Hogwarts and then you take it into the world, that's how it happens. I was just telling Hermione what was going to happen." Harry was dumbstruck for several moments and wasn't quite sure what he'd just heard.

He must have remained silent for too long because Ron nodded to himself as though Harry agreed with him.

Harry was meanwhile wishing for Malfoy again, really wishing for him to turn up and rescue him, a situation he never thought he'd actually come to. He also felt like giggling again at the thought, but didn't think it was the time or place.

"Ron. I don't agree with you. Hermione was right to break up with you though. _**I**_ would have broken up with you."

"Wizards can't have babies Harry." Ron said as though Harry were mad.

"Thank fuck for that Ron." Harry said trying not to think of Ron carrying a baby and then mentally cursed himself as the image popped into his mind. _Now_ he wanted a concussion.

"Did it ever occur to you that Hermione might not want to be a baby making wife stuck at home with the kids while you're off catching criminals?" Harry asked after a moment of trying to rid himself of a male pregnancy.

Ron looked at him. "Of course not right away Harry. But after we finish with Voldemort and everything."

Harry wanted to bash his head against a window, hopefully incurring a large amount of blood loss that would force the stopping of the train and end this conversation.

"Not all wizarding relationships happen like this. There are females in jobs after Hogwarts, who don't have kids." Harry tried to reason.

"Of course there are Harry." Ron said as though Harry were insane. "But not ones with big families." Ron paused. "Or families who do special jobs."

"Hermione wouldn't be doing a special job?" Harry asked. This seemed to stop Ron for a moment.

"Of course she would, but only until we're ready to have children."

At this point Harry left the compartment with Ron looking at him strangely.

"Did you know that was the conversation I was going to have?" Harry asked Luna as he got back into the compartment.

"Have you still got MPREG on your mind Harry?" Luna said through giggles.

"Harry?" Hermione looked at him as he let out an anguished cry.

"I'm fine. Good riddance to Ron I say." Harry paused. "Neville. You don't think that if people are in a relationship now you should be talking about when you're going to have kids and how many and that the female should stay at home?" Harry asked. Neville was surprised and Luna laughed.

"Harry!" Hermione hissed and kicked him in the shins.

Neville recovered from surprise. "That's one way that some people deal with it. No one really thinks like that any more though." He paused and looked between Hermione and Harry. "Is that what Ron was talking about?" He asked gauging their responses. "He was talking about it last year excitedly."

"Don't you just love the wizarding world." Luna said as she started to whistle a ditty tune.

-/

It was a few weeks into school and Harry had taken to walking outside the castle, treading the edge of the forbidden forest consumed by his thoughts.

Along the way sometimes he saw Luna, sometimes he didn't, sometimes he just thought he saw her.

One day he decided to approach her, she was walking into the forest carrying a cane cage that looked like it had something brown and fluffy inside it.

As he got closer he realised they were several somethings.

"Harry." Luna said not looking around as they passed the imagined threshold of the forrest and continued in. Luna seemed to be following a path that she knew, though none was apparent.

"Luna. What's in the cage?"

"Bunnies." She said. "Rabbits if you prefer."

Harry nodded but said nothing.

Then he couldn't help himself. "What for?"

"For the Thestrals." She replied with a smile back at him.

Then they came to a clearing where there were several Thestrals, they looked up at both of them as they walked in on them.

Harry watched in silence as Luna put the cage on the woodland floor and opened it and folded it out, in true wizarding style it was larger than it first appeared with several rabbits each in its own section of the cage.

"They need to be alive do they?" He asked curiously.

"Of course Harry, you can't feed them dead bunnies."

"No. Of course not." Harry mused.

-/

"This is further going to convince Ron that we're shagging like rabbits when his back's turned." Harry said as he and Hermione walked into Hogsmeade together. The three of them had been on relatively thin talking terms, not helped that he was continuing to take similar classes to Hermione.

"What is it with rabbits Harry?" Hermione looked at him. "The last few weeks you've been talking about rabbits." She paused as they let some younger students ahead of them, they were obviously eager to go and explore the village. "You're not getting a rabbit." She said firmly.

"Wizards frown on pulling them out of hats I suppose." Harry muttered.

"Hedwig is more like my owl than yours nowadays." Hermione continued on with her thoughts.

Harry acknowledged this. Lately when he'd needed to talk with anyone he'd just gone himself.

"I've been thinking about that, would you like Hedwig?" Harry began.

Hermione stopped and looked at him. "You're serious."

"Deathly."

"Don't say that Harry." She said.

"Seriously then. She was just sitting around, and if I did use her there are a lot of people who would like to see me dead." Harry said reasonably.

"You don't make friends easily Harry." Hermione commented as they went into the Three Broomsticks.

Hermione directed him to a private booth, he'd never seen them, but they were at the back with a privacy curtain that she informed him was spelled to keep conversations private.

After their drinks appeared through the table Hermione explained why she'd said they should talk.

"It's about your plan." She said looking at him seriously.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "My plan?"

"To dump Voldemort's horcruxes into the sun."

"**A** sun, not **the** sun." Harry corrected.

"How are you going to-" She cut herself off. "Never mind, I'll find out later I suppose?" Harry shrugged.

"All the horcruxes are connected to Voldemort, so he'll have to be there too."

"I had thought of that." Harry responded.

"No, I mean he will need to be there at the point of death with the other horcruxes because he's one."

He hadn't really thought of this but it sounded right. But Hermione continued.

"When I was researching the Protean Charm for the DA" She paused as Harry had a look on his face, it was the same look a lot of people had whenever anyone mentioned Dumbledore. "I came across various other side affects of it."

Harry made a go on gesture as he took a sip of his butterbeer.

"If" Harry raised an eyebrow. "When" Hermione corrected. "You succeed with your plan and dumping him into _**a**_ sun." Hermione paused. "The elemental nature of them and how they're connected might transfer some level of energy to-"

Harry cut her off. "To everyone with the dark mark." Harry mused.

"Yes." Hermione said in a neutral tone.

"Interesting." Mused Harry.

"Interesting? Harry." She hissed at him. "Is that all you can say?"

Harry looked at her. "Should I say anything else?"

"What about innocent people?" Hermione asked.

"Who took the dark mark?" Harry asked.

"It will kill them Harry, the transference of energy even a fraction from within a sun spread out across all those people will be enough to turn them to ash. Not to mention whatever destabilising effect it would have on a stellar object like that transferring energy across an elemental line."

"You've been devouring text books again I notice." Harry commented.

"Unlike some other students in our year level I'm focusing on what **I** want to do."

"And that's not a baby making machine?" Harry asked with a smile.

Hermione shuddered. "No, no thank you Harry."

"Elemental magical energy transfer…" Harry mused several minutes later as they were finishing their drinks.

"Yes Harry?" Hermione watched him. "Or are you talking to yourself again?"

"Next Hogsmeade I might have to disappear."

"To _Night Wolf_?" She whispered.

"Given what we've been talking about and our charms to stop eavesdropping I don't think we need to whisper." Harry commented. "But yes."

"I'm sure I can find a reason for where you've gone if asked."

"Good." Harry smiled.

"But only if you explain what sudden revelation you've had to me before you go off an do it." Hermione said looking at him closely.

Harry glared at her. "Can't I just be mysterious?"

"And me your happy go lucky side kick?" Harry nodded and grinned.

Hermione glared at him. "No Harry."

Harry looked at her and sighed. "Fine." He said as he took another sip of his butterbeer and was silent for a few seconds.

"Well?" Hermione prompted.

"Patience."

"Why?" Hermione looked at him.

"I'm trying to organise my internal monologue."

"Because your life isn't dramatic enough?" Hermione asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"Ron would just look at me in awe." Harry muttered. Hermione kicked him.

"I'm not saying anything about Ron Harry, unless you want me to force images into your head like Luna's mentioned."

Harry shuddered. "No. No thank you Hermione." Harry exhaled. "It's about the elemental energy transference. I'm at my most elemental when I'm in the in between state of body and air, so if I force myself to be in that state..." Harry began as he explained what he would do.

After he finished Hermione looked at him. "That will leave you very exposed to the energy and radiation of the star, if you're going to try and separate the horcrux, where ever it is. Harry have you any idea how dangerous this is?"

Harry shook his head. "That's why I have to go and ask people who do know how dangerous things are." He said and looked at her. "Unless you're hiding a degree somewhere?"

Hermione snorted shaking her head. "I hope to just get my GCSEs this year Harry, one step at a time."

"With no time travel involved at all."

Hermione brightened up. "That could help."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Because our time travelling antics were so safe."

"That's just you Harry, danger follows you everywhere."

"Hermione, I'm hurt, we've been sitting here for over an hour and nothing terrible's happened."

"I'm just waiting for a aeroplane to drop out of the sky on top of us." She deadpanned.

-/

The Brigadier had sent Harry off to get himself a bite to eat while he talked through his plan with Birmingham.

"It's dangerous. We'd need to build something like a life capsule on an umbilical from the ship to keep it isolated. The ships work with a limited amount of magic but this is wild primal once we get Harry and Voldemort in there together with the other horcruxes."

"And what of Harry's other part of the plan?" The Brigadier asked. By the time they'd found all the horcruxes and Voldemort Harry would be ready to tear himself apart unless he was quite close to them.

With them all spread out across the country there was little effect of them on him, but once they were brought together, especially with Voldemort even partially conscious of the fact it would be ready to rip him asunder.

Close proximity during the trip would be the only way for Harry not to be ripped apart during the journey.

"The transmat is an option, but one we should leave as a last resort Alistair." Birmingham only used the Brigadier's name when he was deeply worried. "Harry should use his own innate abilities first as he's described and we will use the ship's transmat systems to get a lock on whatever remains." Birmingham paused and fixed the Brigadier with a look. "Or if Harry is unable to do so we will have to continue the procedure for him."

The Brigadier looked at the other man. "I'll inform him of the dangers of this action and the consequences for him. If we're certain it's the only option."

"It's the best option, all our other options end with him being dead or permanently and severely incapacitated." Birmingham said. Harry had in his musings come up with one of the best ideas of a very bad bunch of ideas.

Harry was having a good time, talking with other young recruits to Night Wolf. He was younger than them, but not by much, a year or two at the most. Soon he'd be finished Hogwarts and be heading out into the wild world.

If he didn't die in the process.

-/

_A/N:_

_This is Ron's last appearance. I find Ron hard to write for. But when he's younger like this and when I write him a little bit thicker than he was he's easier, but writing for him doesn't flow as easily as others._


	14. Chapter 14

CH 14

"So this is it." Harry said. It'd been more than 2 months since his first discussion with the Brigadier and now here he was standing several kilometres under the desert in Australia.

It was a bit like a double sized horse float, made out of grey metal-like material with not many other identifying marks except for a hatch and a large area where the umbilical cable would go to provide things like heat and air.

Life support, that was the word.

"So when will it be ready?" Harry asked. He was eager to get it done with, not eager to die, but eager nonetheless to have this…whatever this was, his life to this point finished. Not dead.

Finished with Voldemort.

He would hopefully live out this...this event.

"You're aware of the scanning process you'll have to go through?" Asked one of the scientists.

"Back in the chair?" Harry asked.

"Every time, for us to get a clear lock on all the horcruxes." He replied sombrely. Harry nodded. He had spoken with both the Brigadier and Birmingham, about whether he would go and get the horcruxes, as he had with the diary.

But given the white out effect of being in the scanning chair, the pain chair as Harry secretly thought of it. Unless they found the horcruxes to be somewhere like Hogwarts the ships' scanners and transmat system would be a more efficient method of collecting the horcruxes.

The wonders of technology that Night Wolf had access to, that it would (theoretically) go through any magical protections, short of Hogwarts.

How they knew that it would do this Harry wasn't sure, only that when he'd asked they'd said they'd had thorough testing.

The scientist wrote something and handed it to Harry. "Go to our matter transmission research division, they'll provide you with a group of fortifying drugs which will strengthen your body's system for the coming processes."

"Any side affects?" Harry asked casually, he already knew that there would be.

The scientist laughed.

It was a laugh that did not fill him with confidence.

-/

Harry stood at the entrance to the Headmistress' office, he didn't know what to tell her.

He'd barely known what to tell Remus, and Remus knew some of what he was about to get himself into. _And_ he thought it was a bad idea. Remus wanted more time to come up with a less suicidal plan.

But Remus was his protector, he wanted to protect him from harm.

Harry wanted this to end. He wished he could have ended it sooner, wished that if Dumbledore...Harry stopped his thought there. He would not allow his thought to be consumed by that man.

"Mr Potter." The Headmistress greeted him in her usual fashion of gazing over her glasses at him as he came into the room.

"Professor." Harry said as he took a seat on the other side of the desk.

"I have just received word. Albus has been charged by special committee." She passed him a scroll, a very long scroll. "Several of the charges involve you Mr Potter."

It listed Dumbledore's attempt on the Black estate, his manipulation of various Gringotts accounts and attempts at even more, there were various thefts and misappropriation of funds also listed.

The failure and neglect of care at Hogwarts ran for a long list, in amongst the list he noticed Crouch's name and Dumbledore's failure to test to Polyuice use amongst the faculty, a standard that was in place for the Tri-Wizard. He was also held responsible as result for the pain and death that occurred during it.

He was also held wholly responsible for the events on the train last year and all the resulting deaths from that.

There were several other charges listed down the scroll that he didn't have a direct connection to, but it was obvious that Dumbledore had his fingers in a lot of pies and had been swirling the filling around and poking it with his wand long before he'd come along.

"I see." Harry said skimmed through a lot of it. "I'd like a copy of that to read later." _If there was a later_. Harry said to himself.

"Remus informed me you wanted to speak with me Mr Potter." She paused watching him. "He did not seem pleased." She said with a slight smile which did nothing to make Harry less anxious.

Harry exhaled and nodded, but found he wasn't sure what to say. He hadn't been sure what to say before he'd arrived and now that he was here he was doubly sure that he wasn't sure what to say.

"I'm going to deal with Voldemort. I'll be away for several days. Probably more." Harry paused. "When I'm done something might happen to everyone who has the Dark Mark. Hermione is certainly thinks something will happen." Harry said the last part with a chuckle.

"What sort of something Mr Potter?" She looked at him carefully.

"The permanent deathly kind." Harry replied in a neutral tone.

"Is it avoidable?" Was her only question, Harry shook his head. "Can I or the order help you Mr Potter, we have been here and willing to help, despite Remus's assurances that you had everything 'under control'. If following a dangerous path, typical of you Mr Potter."

Harry chuckled smiling. "No, Professor. I think I've got everything under control." Harry said, despite the statement being the biggest understatement of his life. "I won't be able to finish my classes Professor." Harry tried not to laugh again. Thinking about classes was so _normal_. Especially as he was about to go up onto a spaceship and suffer through several torturous hours of pain to destroy a man who had split his soul into several pieces.

There was something quite comical he thought at times.

"Mr Potter if you defeat Voldemort and counter his horcruxes I believe that qualifies you for exceptional circumstances and you will pass." She said with determination and stood up.

Harry stood also and offered her his hand. "Thank you Professor."

"Thank you Harry Potter." She shook his hand.

As the door closed to her office she said to herself. "Thank you for your determination and sacrifice. Not that it should ever be needed." She looked down at the scroll on her desk and allowed herself to be lost for a moment in what could have been for the young man, had he not been burdened by this task.

-/

"Do you think that anyone could be ready for what you are about to do Harry?"

Harry almost jumped. Luna was sitting in a window off one of the corridors that lead away from the Headmistresses' office.

"Do you think I'm ready?" Harry asked her.

She smiled at him. "That's not for me to know Harry Potter."

"And what is for you to know?" Harry asked walking towards her.

"That you have saved people, not just your friends, but your enemies." She smiled and touched his cheek. "Be safe Harry Potter."

"You too." Harry said looking into her eyes.

Then something made a noise behind him.

He blinked and then he was alone staring out the window.

"How...?" Harry shook his head. Maybe he'd just imagined all of that.

As he walked away he was sure he heard giggling.

-/

"So do we have a star system yet?" Harry asked as he came into the Brigadier's office.

The Brigadier looked somewhat annoyed. "Yes, but only because agreements couldn't be reached. We will be using a system that was agreed to be mined for a rare element we utilise for our jump gate systems. Any 'issues', so the astrophysicists say that might arise from the star won't affect the element because of its unique properties."

"Okay." Harry said, he understood that there was a special mineral or element that Night Wolf used in their ships that allowed them to punch a hold into hyperspace-proper rather than skirting the edge of it. He also knew it was rare.

"Politics Harry, sometimes I wish I was still out there fighting off alien invasions instead of fighting politicians."

"At least they don't shoot back." Harry said with a smile.

"Are you ready?" The Brigadier asked watching the young man before him.

"I've been taking all the fortifying stuff, physically and mentally preparing myself." Harry said with what confidence he had left in him.

"There will be a full medical team there with you. Unfortunately neither Birmingham nor myself can come along." The Brigadier explained again.

"You've said, this star system is a long way away."

"On the edge of our feasibility sphere for the pod." The Brigadier explained.

"So now it's time for me to face destiny."

"We make out own paths through life Mr Potter." The Brigadier said as he rose from his chair.

"Then, onwards." Harry said punching the air. "And to whatever the future brings."

-/

Travelling up to the spaceship was almost normal and fairly boring, there was only some excitement now, knowing where he was, what he was about to do.

It was not the battle he thought he would be having.

A battle with himself, with himself against pain that he was wilfully enduring. In some way a physical magical battle would be easier, would be more direct.

Instead the path he had chosen meant trusting many more people, taking himself out of the firing line and putting himself into it in an indirect way.

"Oh look it's my old friend the torture chair." Said Harry as he walked into the room that he'd been in several times before. In fact it could be another spaceship with a similar room for all he knew. The chair was the thing he had come to focus on. It needles, its restraints.

The strapping in of the restraints, the count down to the first of five procedures. Just the scanning to find them had taken everything from him, and yet left him almost untouched.

Five procedures, these he hoped would be lessened by the various drugs, potions and other things he's been imbibing. More would be pumped into his system right before they began.

Those that they'd give him now came with a long list of warnings, but considering he was going to spend several hours sitting next to all these elemental fragments, a few drug side effects were nothing to really worry about. Not in the grand scheme of things.

"Ready?" One of the scientist asked as the lights around the chair which had been unaturally bright while they readied everything had now dimmed down.

Harry wanted to shake his head. Instead he was forced to speak. "No." He croaked, the scientist looked worried for a moment. "But let's do it anyway."

He wasn't sure when it began only when it stopped the lights came back up for them to check things and to ask him if he needed anything.

The looks on their faces while neutral their eyes spoke. He just needed this to be over.

When it began again and the third time he was sure time had become blurred because his consciousness seemed to white out until he felt his body ripping apart, through pain or something, he wasn't certain of what was happening.

Then someone was speaking to him, and despite the needles and straps being removed he felt a desperate need to be somewhere, as though something _within _him were trying to get out.

"Mr Potter. Harry. It's time."

That meant they had all the horcruxes, bar one.

Whatever was happening to him it would be a thousand times worse for Voldemort. All the horcruxes were in the pod, wherever that was below the spaceship that he was in.

Voldemort was somewhere on Earth.

It was time for him to go into the pod, where he would lay beside the various horcruxes in stasis. Beside a compartment where Voldemort would lay in stasis.

Harry though, he would need to remain conscious. Stasis the Brigadier had explained wasn't as a proven technology and might kill whomever went in. Maybe.

But killing Voldemort was the problem they were in now, so death wasn't a concern.

Inside it was dark and he was wearing a protective suit that would keep him warm and protect him against any stray radiation.

He had to lie down. He had a tube for water and a few bars of a food sort of thing.

Beside him he could already hear the horcruxes, _whispering_, or maybe he was still in pain from the procedures. He didn't remember much of getting in here, only that he had gone through all this previously, so he would know. In case what was happening happened. The white out from the procedure.

Voldemort when transmatted into a sealed chamber of the pod would be naked of any magical objects. The stasis would _probably_ hold. But there would be no escape from chamber for him. It would a coffin to him, though even a coffin would have more room.

The only controls Harry had for the pod was for the C02 scrubbers, they couldn't put any detection systems in the pod, lest they were effected by the elemental magic within.

He felt the arrival of Voldemort rather than knowing it and then the slight movement as the ship started on its journey to the star system.

It'd take approximately 16 hours.

"My name is Harry James Potter, and this" Harry paused to breathe, he had been forcing himself to do this over the past few hours. He knew he was on the verge of carbon dioxide poisoning. He had to push a button every so often to engage the C02 scrubbers. "Deep breath Harry, not too deep, breathe." He said to himself.

Somewhere near him he could sense Voldemort attempting to reach out to him, to touch him, mind to mind.

"This is where I die, or maybe where I live." He chuckled. "But whatever happens, I'm taking you with my you bastard." Harry said with vigour.

"And how will you kill me Harry Potter, locked in a box with me? These stupid muggles thinking they can affect me Voldemort the most powerful wizard in all time?" Whispered a voice. Or it could have been his imagination Harry wasn't sure.

Either way he didn't answer because it was starting to get hot.

The space craft the ASCS _Hattah _was large by any standard that it could be measured against on Earth by people who knew anything about space craft, but it was normal sized when compared to its sister ships. Larger than the proof of concept _Firefox_ it was larger than anything humanity had built that flew through space. Though considering only rockets and shuttles could compare this was nothing.

400 metres long, a little over half that high and wide it had been designed by humans and looked like it.

The exterior of the ship rippled as the magic specially implanted on the hull plating along its hull activated. Designed especially for the final part of the 16 hour trip through via a hyperspace window generated by the ship. Within the ship further cooling measures activated both magical and technological to cool the areas of the ship that were being bombarded by heat and radiation.

The occupants of the command centre and bridge were unaffected by any of this, located not quite in the middle of the ship isolated from the exterior, but its location placed it within the gravity field generated by the engines. Here they had gravity and access to everything that was going on outside and inside the ship.

And inside the pod that was dangling from an umbilical below the ship.

"Pod temperature drastically rising, sorcery's doing almost nothing to help." Said the Secondary Systems Coordinator, an individual who received information from various arms of the ship, laboratories, translation teams, other systems like that and brought summaries together on the bridge.

"Begin dumping process." Said the captain. Three screens ahead of them displayed various images of what lay ahead of them, the pod's position and the space around them.

Harry felt something open beneath him and realised that he was now sitting above a star.

"Good riddance Voldemort."

"_Sorcerer Potter. Now._" Said a calm voice of someone on board the ship and Harry concentrated on making himself intangible, but not to go anywhere.

As he did so the container that held Voldemort within dropped from the pod towards the star and Harry felt something, something sharp within himself, but it was more than that it was something _of_ himself.

It was something he wasn't sure he could even find words for, let alone speak of in his current state, he could feel burning, he could feel his being ripping apart, drawn towards the star below. Something within was calling, _no_ it was something more primal more _of_ his being than that. And yet it wasn't.

To any observer, there was no Harry Potter any more within the pod, merely something elemental, something ancient, something everlasting.

Like the darkness, like the air, there was an existence as it attempted to rid itself of the...the something, the presence that it could not figure, could barely understand.

"Matter transmission is starting to loose a lock on Potter's energy signal."

"What of the horcrux?" Asked the captain.

"Sorcery section is still reading intermittent sorcery energy levels associated with the horcrux." The SSC officer reported.

"Hull temperature approaching safety limits." Reported another part of the bridge.

"Activate secondary systems." The captain ordered calmly.

"Secondary systems _already_ active sir."

"Activate tertiary systems and punch a countdown to screen 2."

A countdown appeared on one of the screens, they had 9 minutes and counting, but that wouldn't matter because at the current levels of radiation exposure Harry Potter would be dead in 4.

The elemental cloud of magical energy that was Harry Potter felt something leave him and suddenly felt free, really free for the first time in…he didn't know what. But he couldn't reform himself, he was still…he didn't know what.

He just knew he had to escape.

"Sorcery is detecting mass energy shift from pod. There's no trace of Potter in the pod sir."

"Sensors detecting gravimetric shift in star."

"Get us out of here, return plot to Earth." The captain ordered.

The large ship swung around with much grace for something of its size and disappeared in a cloud of speed.

Harry Potter wasn't sure what he was, or where he was, only that he had been liberated of something and that he was safe.

"We're certain that's him captain." Said one of the matter transmission experts that they'd brought with them from the Gibson Desert facility for this mission.

They'd set up large energy baffles in this area of the ship which Harry Potter had obviously found, but he hadn't reformed.

Instead he was just a large 'cloud' of indistinct matter and energy.

"Can't you do anything?" He asked.

The scientist shook his head. "We're not sure if he's even conscious. He's alive we know that, but aside from that…." He trailed off. "There was a chance of mental injury resulting from this process."

"Not to mention the radiation." The captain commented but the scientist shook his head.

"At least in this form there doesn't appear to be much detectable radiation, none that can't be treated. The issue is his reformation and his mental state when he does so." The scientist responded.

"Do you have any idea of if, or when?"

"I'm confident of when, Mr Potter was mentally strong, he stood up to the scanning procedures." The scientist replied to the captain's questions.

"So we shall wait and see if he returns."

"Yes." The scientist said gazing at the blackness in front of them.

-/

_A/N:_

_By introducing the horcruxes it meant I've had to ditch any big battle sequence with the Death Eaters. I flirted with having Harry have to battle it out against Death Eaters or Voldemort to get to them / Voldemort. But given how I've handled how the horcruxes are found I just thought it was a bit of padding that needn't have been there._


	15. Chapter 15

CH 15

Hermione Granger was in the Great Hall, eating lunch and talking to Neville. Since Harry had 'gone into protection' (the official line) Ron had tried to make moves back into her good graces, they were on speaking terms, but only just. Ron had flown into a rage when she'd told him on no uncertain terms that there was very little possibility of them ever getting into a relationship again. It had particularly soured any remaining relationship she had with Ginny.

Neville had needed to help her subdue Ron. Since then they'd only _just_ been on speaking terms. Very few speaking terms.

It began as an odd smell like burnt toast and then with a horrified fascination she realised her predication was true.

Also, slightly more revealing just how many students, not all of them in Slytherin had taken the Dark Mark.

It was fascinating in a morbid sort of way.

Hermione had her wand in the air, casting the Aguamenti Charm, not at the people burning but over the entire Gryffindor table as the heat coming from the people rocketed from quite hot to intense.

Headmistress McGonagall hurriedly evacuated the Great Hall when it became apparent that all spells failed to put out the fires that seemed to erupt from students' arms as they were engulfed in a white hot flame.

Even to look near them hurt the eyes.

The heat was amazingly painful, even those who had only been vaguely close recieved burns from being close.

Hermione's spell, and others who had followed her lead had been said to prevent the worse damage.

The next day there were reports covering most of the Daily Prophet's coverage of people throughout the wizarding and some people, wizards and witches in the muggle world also burning up as the students at school had.

'This was the single largest massacre of witches and wizards since…I don't know…' said one quote Hermione read.

They'd needed to replace the stones in the great hall where the students had stood and burned. They'd burned down through 2 layers of the magical stone in the hall. It was 'unprecedented' Remus had said and shared a look with her.

They both knew what had happened and what this meant.

It hadn't taken long, 2 days in fact for someone to sneak into where Dumbledore was being held to ask him for an opinion.

'_It is my understanding that those who __**burned**__ were all connected to Voldemort _(he-who-must-not-be-named ed.)_, I believe there is only one wizard who was capable of removing Voldemort from this world._' Dumbledore had gone on, but most of his quote had seemingly been cut.

The headlines after that were less than flattering to Harry after that point.

'Harry Potter Genocidal Warlord' was one of the headlines, Hermione had kept it, mostly because she thought Harry would find it amusing.

That was only one of the amusing parts of the days ahead though.

Being Harry's friend had never been easy, but being the friend of someone who'd managed to kill more wizards then anyone on record was another thing altogether.

"Technically speaking he didn't actually kill any of those people." Hermione said to Remus. They were in his rooms, it was a Hogsmeade weekend, but it wasn't safe. Ironically with all the people who might want muggles dead and now eliminated; a new crop of people wanting to avenge their deaths had come out of the wood work.

Minister Scrimgeour was having a hard time keeping the Ministry together, but he'd taken a very hard line in declaring that after the Ministry had done its researches, rather than listening to the Prophet, that it had concluded that everyone who burned must have been connected to Voldemort.

But that was not to say it was right that they died.

"I think you should request to take your exams now Hermione and leave." Remus said calmly as he poured them each another cup of tea.

"What?" Hermione exclaimed.

"Tensions are rising and as Harry's most prominent friend I think-" He stopped. "I think it would be safer." He finished looking at her eyes full of seriousness.

Hermione nodded, it was something she had been thinking of herself, but hadn't really wanted to admit it, that she would have to leave Hogwarts like this, because of who she was and who her friends were.

At least there was a future, she had a path to follow and a future ahead of her.

One that didn't include being a baby machine.

Hermione returned later the following week to Harry's beach house. When on the third day she was there; the phone, the special phone that is, that Harry sometimes used to contact Night Wolf rang.

"Hello?" She said tentatively.

"_Ah, Ms Granger is it?"_ Said a man's voice that was full of humour and seriousness.

"Yes?"

"_General Lethbridge-Stewart, thought I should contact you. Harry's mission was a success."_

"I gathered that General." Hermione replied.

"_Ah, the burning, something we had anticipated, helped by your researches via Harry. Thank you._"

"There was-" Hermione started to say.

"_We know what has been happening in the world of wizarding. Harry's awake you can see him if you'd like."_

"I would."

"_Good show, we'll need you to come by here and sign a few more things and then we can get you up there."_

'Up there', turned out to be a space ship. A space ship! Hermione had spent 5 minutes staring out at the Earth before she realised she was here to see someone.

"How long did you spend gaping Hermione?" Harry said from a chair.

He was dressed in army fatigues and looked ill. Quite ill in fact.

There were also large things like in a recording studio but made out of a synthetic material and also wooden ones around him.

"You look…" She trailed off as Harry waved at a seat opposite him.

"Terrible. Radiation it turns out is not friendly." Harry said weakly.

"Are you-?" She couldn't bring herself to say the words.

"Going to be alright. Yes. Radiation wise; spells, potions, technology and something from a Dalek ship has helped me recover from that quite well."

Hermione let the question of what a 'Dah-lek' was rest for later.

"So what are these things?" She asked motioning to the things around them.

"They're matter baffles. I had to loose myself somewhat when I ridded myself of Voldemort." Harry explained as he reached forward for his mug of liquid. It wasn't water from what Hermione could see. "It was quite freeing, a little too much. Until I get myself sorted out completely and re-understand what it's like to be me I've got to stay here or sometimes elsewhere on the ship."

"How long?" Hermione asked, wondering if this was a permanent thing.

Harry shrugged. "Not sure. Until I work it out."

Hermione nodded. "It happened, as I said it might."

Harry nodded. "I got a briefing from Night Wolf." He said as Hermione withdrew a folded piece of the Prophet.

Harry laughed. "Genocidal Warlord."

"Some want your head on a stick Harry." Hermione warned.

"I'm sure they do. When I'm better I'll have to have a talk with the Minister. I did after all rid him of another Warlord."

-/

It was more than a month before Harry met, in secret with Minister Scrimgeour, something Remus had arranged for him.

"I should have you arrested Mr Potter." The Minister said regarding him.

"After what I've just done, what makes you think any prison, any person could hold me?" Harry asked leaning forward slightly. They were in a deserted park in London siting between a table with a chess board inset in it. The concrete chairs were hard but neither him nor the Minister seemed to notice.

"No. You still directly or not killed a lot of witches and wizards. It's not the way we do things." The Minister said tapping his fingers on the chess board.

"Justice?" Harry mused.

"Yes. Mr Potter."

"Something my godfather never got." Harry recalled.

The Minister paused for a moment. "That was an unfortunate oversight."

"They want my blood don't they?" Harry asked.

"Your blood, your head, your body on a pyre, and those are just the loud voices."

"And what do you want?" Harry asked as he leaned back and looked up at the sky.

"For you not to be my problem Mr Potter. You've done a service to the Wizarding World, whether it knows it or not."

Later that week, a statement from Harry Potter, via the Ministry of Magic appeared in the Prophet. It acknowledged he had destroyed Voldemort who had prolonged his life with Dark Magic. It acknowledged that Harry knew Voldemort shared a link with his followers. It did not state he knew what might happen, nor how Voldemort had been dealt with. He then went on to say that he would be stepping away from wizarding and muggle Britain for an undisclosed amount of time.

The Minister then stated that there would be no reparations paid to the families, and that the Ministry would not be pursuing the matter further.

"Harry Potter made a great sacrifice, one that had the potential to end with his life. I would ask no wizard to do this, yet he did so without question so that we might live freer lives away from the tyranny of Voldemort."

-/

"So what now Harry Potter?" Hermione asked as she sipped her drink. They were outside watching the sun set.

"I don't know Hermione Granger. I have literally nothing to do." Harry said swigging at his beer.

"You're going to hate that." Hermione said with a giggle.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Not having anything to do." Hermione broke down into laughter with Harry joining her.

-/

END.

_A/N:_

_And that's it, the end to UNITed by Sorcery. _

_The rest of the stories in the series Alexandria Auction and the Encounter series (Doctor, Intelligence and Prometheus) continue to function as sequels to this story. There are some issues with some things which get mentioned which I've cut out from this story. _

_It took me several years to get around to doing a harsh edit as this was to this one, but I hope to be able to do minor edits to the sequels to make them fit better with this sooner than that. _

_Though not immediately._

_Thank you to everyone who read the original (and reviewed), and thank you to everyone who has read this new version and reviewed and/or sent me messages. _


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